


In which Ray and Fraser go in search of the Hand of Franklin

by mific



Category: due South
Genre: Adventure, Digital Art, Dogsledding, Fanfiction, First Time, Folklore, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Maps, Mixed Media, Post-Canon, Resolved Sexual Tension, Snow, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wilderness Survival, Wolves, the Hand of Franklin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:26:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A set of linked stories, following the adventures of Ray, Fraser, Dief and the dog-team on their journey to find the Hand of Franklin. Featuring hardships, disasters, tall tales and other amusements, including ptarmigans, changelings, cursed cars, and naked sweating. Each chapter has an attached artwork, and at the end of our heroes' peregrinations, a map of their travels is provided.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ray yammers on about Franklin's hand

**Author's Note:**

> Created for the 2016 dS_c6d Big Bang. My initial idea was to make an interactive map with clickable points for the stories and art along the way. That proved technically impossible to display directly in AO3 or other sites, but there is such a map in pdf format at the end of the final chapter, which is fun to play with. However - it contains a spoiler for a joke Ray makes in that last chapter, so I suggest leaving it until the end.  
> Note that the maps roughly represent the summer topography, but all the greenish and blue bits are covered with snow and ice, for Ray and Fraser.  
> Huge thanks to Ride_Forever for the beta!

 

 

Ray knew he was mostly dead weight on this trip.

Not that he wasn't fit—hey, he was plenty fit. He boxed. He could run down your average felon and get him cuffed while that clown Dewey was still puffing along in the rear. Okay, maybe he wasn't faster than Fraser and he sure as hell wasn't faster than Dief, but Fraser was a freak and Dief was a wolf. Half-wolf, whatever. Plus, Dief had four legs.

Anyhow, Ray was no slouch, but he was city fit, not Arctic fit, so he mostly rode on the sled. He did a stint on the skis each day, but after an embarrassingly short time his legs started screaming at him and he had to let Fraser manhandle him off the skis and onto the sled again. The sled was fine, but eventually he got cold, with the sitting still, even huddled under furs. The skiing warmed him up, but only for a while. Ray felt kind of bad for the dogs, having to haul his ass as well as their supplies, but at least he was skinny. Fraser seemed to think it was fine that he mostly rode and he wouldn't let Ray ski for too long anyway, saying he mustn't overdo it and risk pulling a muscle.

So basically, Ray figured he was there for entertainment. Trouble was, it was hard to hold up your end of a conversation when your teeth were chattering, so he tried to get as much mileage as possible from the window of warmer time after he'd worn himself out on the skis, and before sitting hunkered down on the sled cooled him down too much.

Fraser was a lot less chatty out here, but then he was skiing, and even Fraser didn't have too much energy left over after that. It should've been great—a chance to get a goddamn word in edgewise for a change and shoot his mouth off about all sorts of shit, but Ray had gotten used to the to and fro between them and he missed Fraser's snippy comebacks. Grunts, which was mostly what he got when Fraser was head down in an icy wind, weren't much to go on. Still, he figured talking was his job on the expedition, so he gave it his best, even if most of his questions were just blowing in the wind.

"It ain't really a _hand_ , right, Fraser?" Fraser didn't even grace that with a grunt. "I mean, like, we don't got a shitshow of finding one dead old guy's frozen hand in all this ice an' snow, so I figure it ain't a _literary_ hand. So, I'm guessing, something hand- _like_. In the Beaufort Sea. They got corals like that—hand corals. Saw it on a nature show Turtle likes. I'm thinking your average coral wouldn't do so well up here, though. Unless they got, like, _Arctic_ corals. Kind of like icicles except underwater. And not made of ice. So not really all that much like icicles, I guess."

That got a grunt out of Fraser, but Ray was still learning to interpret Fraser's grunts so he wasn't sure if it was a grunt of vague agreement, a thoughtful 'you may have a point there, Ray' kind of grunt, or a disgusted grunt. Could even have been wind. The food sure gave Ray indigestion sometimes, but Fraser was generally made of sterner stuff when it came to putting weird crap in his mouth.

"Or, like, what with Franklin sailing on one of them old-time boats, ships or whatever, I guess it could mean a ship's hand. But that don't make sense 'cause Franklin was the boss, right? So they'd all be his hands, and why'd we be looking' for just one of them? Unless . . ." Ray bit his lip at a sudden thought. "Unless the guy was special to Franklin, like, his _special_ deck-hand, or somethin'." He shot a quick look at Fraser's form, bowed with effort, doggedly sliding one ski after the other. "This ain't some crazy old sailor love story, is it? Like Romeo an' Juliet 'cept in the Arctic? Franklin and his Hand, and maybe the Hand wandered off into the snow and got froze to death and Franklin died of pining even before he woulda died of starvation?"

Fraser grunted again and this time it sounded distinctly pained, but did that mean he was feeling sad for Franklin's tragical lost love or weirded out by Ray yammering on about long-since popsicled explorers and sailors gettin' it on together, or even disgusted by the whole _mano a mano_ thing. Damn. Just because Ray had the hots for Fraser he shouldn't've let his goddamn mouth run off like that, with all the dumb wish-fulfillment bullshit about two guys together, in the Arctic, on a quest. Despite the cold, Ray felt a prickle of fear-sweat along his spine.

He was a one-trick pony for now, though, so there was nothing to do except keep on talking and hope to distract Fraser from his blunder. "But then, how're we gonna find one guy, out in the frozen wastes, right? If Franklin couldn't find him, I'm guessin' we ain't gonna have a snowball's chance in hell. So maybe the hand's not a person. Maybe it's a . . . a thing _like_ a hand. Hand-shaped, maybe. Um, like a rock . . . or how does the damn song go? Pointing to the Beaufort Sea or something? Maybe it's one of those sign-posts with a pointy-fingered hand carved at the end and 'Beaufort Sea 500 miles' on it. Maybe Franklin made it, or had his crew make it, to point where the Northwest Passage was supposed to be. Even if they didn't make it."

Fraser muttered something at that, maybe "reaching" or "stretching"; Ray couldn't quite catch it, what with the wind. And, yeah, he had a point, it was a helluva reach, but that wasn't why Ray was doing this shit. He was the entertainment on this trip and he was determined to keep his end up.

It was kind of a downer, really, thinking about old Franklin and his expedition. Two big ships like that, and they still got lost. Vanished in the ice, like that airplane that went down in the Andes with a football team in it—what was the book called? _Alive_ , that was it, and old Buck Frobisher was a nutjob, 'cause it definitely happened in South America, not here in the Arctic. He'd read it with horrified fascination one time when he was on a boring stakeout, how the survivors had to eat their dead teammates. Man, he'd been crazy, letting Fraser drag him all the way up here, just the two of them. They didn't have a ship, not even a canoe. No back-up plan, just the dogs, and Ray _really_ didn't want to have to eat the dogs, which were kind of nice, even if they were no-nonsense working dogs.

He'd want Fraser to eat him, if the worst happened, Ray thought. He'd been raised a good Polish Catholic boy, but if someone was already dead it wasn't a sin to eat them; it was a sin to let yourself die when you could've saved yourself. The Church'd even come out and said that, after the Andes plane crash. Would Fraser do it, though? And if it was the other way around—which Ray figured was pretty goddamn unlikely 'cause if anyone was gonna get deep-frozen out here he reckoned it'd be him, not Constable Survival-of-the-Fittest—would he be able to eat Fraser? The thought gave him the chills, and he shivered. Best not to think about eating Fraser or being eaten by him. That way lay . . . well, not madness, exactly, but Ray'd spent altogether too many fevered nights in his bed imagining just that, but under altogether warmer and more pleasant circumstances.

Shit, he wasn't holding up his end of the deal, day-dreaming about stuff he wasn't supposed to want. Stuff Fraser had shown no signs of wanting, for all they were buddies, and Fraser clearly enjoyed his company. Which he wasn't being so great at providing, right now.

"Or it could be the shape of the land, y'know, that looks like a hand?" Ray suggested, a little desperately. "Like a river spreading out in five channels where it hits the Beaufort Sea. Is there a Franklin River up here, Fraser?" That got a pretty negative sort of grunt, so maybe not. "Hmm, okay. Well, maybe the land sticks out in five fingers and they named it after Franklin, or the sea sticks down into the land in—whatcha call 'em? Fords? Bjorks?" A slightly more considering grunt now, from Fraser, and he even slowed up a little, then whistled the dogs to a halt. "Why we stopping? Was it something I said?"

Fraser cast him a glance, and unwrapped the scarf from around his lower face. He was smiling though, so whew. "No, Ray, although I welcome the opportunity to discuss some of your more . . . interesting theories. It's time we made camp for the night, that's all. There's no shelter out here so it'll take a little longer than usual. We’ll need to build a wind-barrier for the tent. A snow wall."

It did take a while, but Ray got warmed up again doing what Fraser told him—packing snow along one wall of the tent, although how Fraser knew the wind was gonna come from that direction was anyone's guess. Finally, they were inside, and Ray was pretty toasty, what with the exercise of pitching camp and the shelter of the tent, curled up in his sleeping bag with a hot meal inside him.

"So, Ray," Fraser said, stretched out beside him. "The Hand of Franklin." He had his journal out to make the day's entry—Fraser wrote in his journal every night like clockwork, just like old Franklin probably had, not that anyone'd found either him or his diary. Fraser riffled through the pages and found a blank one near the end, scribbled on it for a while, then ripped it carefully out and passed it to Ray.

"Hey, you shouldn't've messed up your book," Ray said, taking it. "Um, I'm gonna need my eye-glasses." They were in his pack, but the packs were over behind Fraser, by the tent wall they'd reinforced.

"Oh, of course, Ray. One moment." Fraser found his pack and went to pass it across. Typical, Ray thought, amused. Respecting Ray's privacy or, more likely, not wanting to risk touching his undershorts by mistake.

He waved the pack off. " 's okay. They're in the little side-pocket. Yeah, that one." Fraser rummaged, then handed over the glasses.

Ray slid them on and examined the page, filled with Fraser's neat writing. It was the lyrics to the song he'd been trying to remember.

 _Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage,_  
_To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;_  
_Tracing one warm line through a land so wide and savage,_  
_And make a Northwest Passage to the sea._

"Huh," Ray said, reading the chorus. " ' _Reaching_ for the Beaufort Sea', I got that wrong. Oh, you corrected me. Thought you meant it was a reach. Y'know—far-fetched."

"Well, that, too, Ray," Fraser said, smiling. "There's no Franklin River, I'm afraid—not up here. And no promontories or fjords that are called 'the Hand of Franklin'. It's a nice idea, though. If we found something suitable, we could name it."

"Yeah?" Ray grinned at him. "That'd be cool." He turned back to the page again and read the rest of the song. "There's a lot more here than I realized. I didn't know all these verses, just that bit of the chorus. All these dudes: Kelso, Mackenzie, Thompson. They all try to find the Northwest Passage, too?"

"No, Ray. They were explorers, yes, but not this far north, in the main. Wait, I have something . . .." He turned to his own pack and felt about in it, extracting a folded-up sheaf of papers. "Here it is. Buck pressed this on me for a little light reading if chance allowed, but I think you're better placed for that, and it'll answer your questions." He handed the bundle to Ray. "It's from various books and magazines—articles or chapters about the explorers in the song, and more. About the exploration of the far North." His eyes twinkled a little. "I haven't had a chance to read it all yet, so perhaps you can tell me about them, as we travel."

Ray gave Fraser a look. For sure Fraser already knew this stuff—he'd have been the kind of kid who paid attention in history class, unlike Ray who'd just as often played hooky so's to hang out and wait for Stella or poke around used car lots. Ray figured, though, that his plan to be the light relief part of their double-act was no secret. On this trip, anyway, where he was so far out of his depth and Fraser was in his element. Fraser had something of the schoolteacher in him, and he'd most likely enjoy Ray reading aloud to him and adding his own commentary. 

"Yeah," he said finally, smiling. "I can do that."


	2. Fraser tells a fairy story

 

 

At first, Ray didn't fall asleep so much as pass out like some perp had clocked him one. Everything ached. His legs, his arms—and he hadn't done all that much time on the skis. Fraser hadn't let him, knowing he'd feel it later.

Once his muscles were more used to moving him across snow and ice, into the wind and against it, he found he had a different problem. He didn't ache all over any more, and he wasn't exhausted to the point of collapse, but he just couldn't settle.

The wind freaked Ray out in stormy weather, wailing and moaning past the tent like a banshee. He worried about the dogs, even though Fraser'd told him more than once they were made for this, hunkered safely down in their snow-caves, well-insulated. When it was calm and still, it was too quiet, the snow dampening sound, making Ray twitch and shift restlessly. He missed Chicago's traffic noises, a constant backdrop of screeching brakes, honking, and sirens. Ray could pick the sirens out without thinking—police, ambulance, fire trucks, all of them.  None of that here, just the wind.

He tried counting sheep, but it didn't go so well; this wasn't any kind of place for sheep, and when the wind shrieked he kept seeing plump cartoon sheep being carried off struggling in the jaws of a polar bear. Or falling down a crevasse, wedged fatly halfway down by their wool, bleating pathetically, their hooves kicking uselessly. That brought him out in a sweat and made him toss and turn.

"Ray?" Fraser asked, as he turned over yet again and punched up the heap of clothes he was using as a pillow, trying to get the sound of phantom bleats out of his ears. "Are you all right?"

"Not so much," Ray said. "Can't sleep."

"Ah," Fraser said. "The early stages of journeys like this can be taxing. The physical demands, the cold, the very different diet causing a metabolic shift, why I remember–"

"It ain't the diet." Not that Ray was thrilled with what they were eating—fat and protein, mostly. It made him feel like he had the 'flu. Fraser said he had to drink more, while he adjusted, but then he had to piss all the time, and that was a trick and a half, in cold weather gear.

"Perhaps we should entertain each other," Fraser suggested once Ray had settled back down. "We could tell stories."

"What, like more Inuit tales?" Ray shivered. "Not sure I can handle creepy Inuit folktales out here with the wind makin' weird noises."

"Hmm. Well, I also have Scottish ancestry, as the name Fraser indicates, so how about something Celtic?"

"Yeah, maybe, I guess." Couldn't be as bad as those gloomy Inuit tales, Ray figured, and he was nowhere near ready to sleep.

"Very well, Ray. This is set back in the days when men wore swords as a matter of course if they were gentlemen, so I imagine in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. It's about the Laird of Balmachie and his wife."

Ray grinned to himself; he liked how Fraser rolled his rrrs. Fraser'd never admit it, but he was a complete ham.

"So the Laird traveled to Dundee, leaving his wife at home ill in bed."

"Typical," Ray muttered. "She's laid up with the 'flu and he's off on the town."

"Well, we don't know that, Ray. He might have gone to purchase medicine for her, after all. If I might continue?" Ray tilted his head, a little skeptically. He had a few doubts about this Laird dude. Fraser resumed the story. "Riding home in the twilight, he left the road and took a shortcut through some knolls, called the Cur-hills–"

Ray shook his head. "Now see, that's just plain dumb. He's on a perfectly good road and it's twilight so he can't see too good, and he heads off into the hills? Who does that? Only those jackasses who go down in the cellar of the haunted house when they hear a spooky noise, am I right? I got a bad feeling about this, Frase."

"Yes, well, Ray, you may have a point there, but as you'll see the story does rather _require_ the Laird to ride off into the hills, and he _was_ said to be 'a man of dauntless courage'." Fraser raised a slightly piqued eyebrow.

Ray snorted. "Yeah, sounds like someone else we know, right? Riding off into Christ knows what like a knight on a white horse."

"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean, Ray," Fraser said, a little testily. "So, back to the Laird. In the hills, he encountered a troop of fairies carrying someone on a litter, and–"

"Wait up," Ray interjected. "How'd he know they were fairies?"

"Possibly as they were all wearing 'Gay Pride' buttons," Fraser said, now clearly pissed.

"Yeah, har de har. But there must've been _something_ about 'em, right? Can't have been tiny and flitting about like Tinkerbell or they'd never manage a litter—that's like a stretcher, right? I've carried one of those things, and I'm tellin' you, they ain't light, not with a person on 'em."  Ray lifted a finger. "And don't tell me it was the clothes, 'cause everyone back then dressed funny."

"In those times a litter was a bed or chair lifted on poles, rather than a simple stretcher. So, yes, it would have been heavy. These are, however, supernatural beings we're talking about." Fraser sighed, long-suffering. "Oh, very well. In the hills, the Laird encountered a troop of fairies and knew them to be fairies as they were only two feet tall and surrounded by an eldritch glow, and they were floating in mid-air."

"Now you're talking," Ray said with satisfaction.

Fraser ignored him. "Impelled by some internal impulse, the Laird rode his horse close to the litter, drew his sword, laid it across the vehicle, and in a firm tone exclaimed–"

"Some internal impulse? You sure this ain't one of your own relatives, Fraser?  'cause he's sure sounding pretty much like you. Next he'll be _licking_ the goddamn fairies." There was a pause. Ray winced, realizing he'd drifted into dangerous waters. He studiously avoided Fraser's eye.

Fraser cleared his throat. "In a firm tone, the Laird exclaimed, 'In the name of God, release your captive!'"

"Oh, wait now," Ray said. "How'd he know it was a kidnapping, huh?"

"Well, fairies wouldn't be transporting a person for any good reason, Ray, and the size of the litter—presumably like a four-poster bed with curtains, carried on poles—would have indicated that it contained a human."

"Yeah, yeah, okay, I see that," Ray allowed. "Plus, I'm guessin' that fairies back then, they were automatically suspect. Always causing trouble, right? Kind of like gangbangers today."

Fraser digested this, then nodded. "Yes, I believe you have a point, Ray. In the old stories, fairies were almost always up to no good, or trying to trick humans."

"Delinquents," Ray agreed, "know the type." He waved a hand for Fraser to continue.

"The fairy troop immediately disappeared, dropping the litter on the ground."

Ray snorted. "Cut 'n run. Typical hoodlums."

"The Laird dismounted and found the litter contained his own wife, dressed in her bedclothes. Wrapping his coat around her, he placed her on the horse before him, and rode with her to their home."

"So was she out cold?" Ray puzzled. " 'cause she's gonna fall right off the horse again if she is. Unless he tied her on. You think he might've tied her on, Frase?"

"It's likely he wore a greatcoat, Ray. He may have simply buttoned it around her to keep her from falling."

"Yeah," Ray said, consideringly. "Kinda like buddy-breathing, right? Except with coats."

" . . . er, yes. But to continue. The Laird hid his wife, who he'd rescued from the fairies, in another room with a servant maid to care for her, then he went upstairs to his wife's bedroom where he'd left her that morning, sick with a fever."

"Ha. Figured she had the 'flu," Ray said.

Fraser nodded. "In his wife's bedroom, the Laird found her to be fretful, discontented, and complaining about having been neglected in his absence."

"Well, she's got a point, Fraser. I mean, not like he could nip down to the corner store for some aspirin back then, right? He must've been away for hours."

"Indeed, Ray," Fraser said. "So the Laird made a great show of concern, and pretended to be sympathetic, insisting that she get up so he could have her bed made."

Ray snorted. "Yeah, right. Not like he was gonna do it himself. I tell ya, Fraser, this Laird guy's  not on the straight an' narrow. He's up to something."

Fraser held up a finger. "She said that she was unable to rise, but her husband insisted, and having ordered a large fire to be lit to warm the room, he lifted her from the bed and carried her across the floor as if to a chair which had been prepared for her. He then threw her on the fire, from which she bounced like a sky-rocket and went up through the ceiling and out the roof of the house, leaving a hole in the slates."

Ray sat up, the better to gesticulate. "He _what_? So this woman who looked just like his wife, he just throws her in the fire? How'd he know for sure? Those fairies could've been toting one of their own, just, y'know, changed her to look like his wife. For all this Laird dude knows it's a fairy impostor downstairs an' this is his real wife."

"Well, Ray, I doubt that his real wife would have burst straight up through the roof like a rocket," Fraser said mildly.

"Nope, she would've been burned to a crisp. I mean, sure, he made the right call, but where's his evidence? He basically tried and sentenced that woman in the bed in his own head. That ain't right." Ray flopped back down with an annoyed huff.

"You don't think someone could recognize the one he loves, even if an identical impostor were trying to fool him?"

Ray shot him a sidelong look. This was most likely where the sniffing and licking came in, but he sure as hell wasn't gonna suggest it. "So, what, you reckon he had a hunch?"

"I think he used the evidence of his senses, yes. The situation may literally have smelled 'fishy' to him. Also, he was clearly aware of the tricks that fairies were known to play on humans, such as changelings—exchanging a human for a fairy shape-shifter."

"Mmm." Ray thought about it some. "So that's it, then? Happy endings all round?"

"More or less. The woman downstairs was indeed his real wife, and she told him that she'd been kidnapped by the fairies and carried off, put to sleep by magic until the iron of his sword broke the spell. The hole in the roof was mended, but every year at that same time a high wind rose up and blew off the slates again without harming any other part of the roof."

"Bastard fairies. Thumbing their noses at the Laird every year," Ray decided. "Kinda like keying his car to get back at him."

"Perhaps so," Fraser agreed. Ray looked over. Fraser was lying back comfortably, hands folded on his chest. He didn't look anything like a fairy, either the glowy kind or the gay kind, but there was something kind of fey about him. Always had been.

Ray thought about Fraser's weirdness. He wasn't devious and tricksy in the way the fairies were, but it was like he had one foot in another world, what with how he talked to Dief and all. Ray shivered a little. "Fraser?"

Fraser turned his head. "Yes, Ray? I trust my tale was reasonably entertaining without being unduly creepy?"

Ray stared up into the shadows of the tent. "Yeah, it was fine. But that thing you were sayin' about impostors. How'm I to know you're not a fairy changeling, huh?" He held his breath, waiting to see what Fraser would say.

Fraser felt around at his side, down by the tent wall, and Ray peered across curiously. When Fraser raised his hand he was holding his big hunting knife. Ray started involuntarily, and Fraser raised his eyebrows. "Cold iron, Ray. Fairies can't abide it." He pressed the flat of the blade firmly against his other hand, then set the knife back down and rolled onto his elbow, facing Ray. "But how am I to be sure _you're_ not a fairy yourself, Ray?"

Ray swallowed, his mouth dry. "I, uh . . ."

Fraser pushed at his shoulder. "Roll over so you're facing away from me."

Ray did so, his heart beating fit to bust. "Frase? What're you . . . ?"

Fraser fitted himself in behind Ray, one arm around his waist to pull them closer. They were both heavily bundled up in sleeping bags and furs, but it was still strangely cozy. "As I said, Ray, the evidence of the senses." He nudged Ray's head forward and ran his nose up and down the back of Ray's neck, sniffing. Ray stifled a whimper. Then he felt Fraser's tongue, warm and wet, lick a stripe up his spine. "Mmm. Definitely human," Fraser said. He settled onto the makeshift pillow, his breath warm in Ray's hair. "Go to sleep, Ray."

" . . . Yeah, 'night, Fraser," Ray said after a while, when he could get his voice to work again.

It was a long time before he got to sleep.

 


	3. Ray gets shafted

 

 

It was his own stupid fault, Ray thought hazily. He should've learned his lesson after the first goddamn crevasse lark. At least Fraser wasn't down here with him this time, but it was colder now, with a lot more snow on him and inside his clothes, which weren't his full arctic sledding gear either. He'd only been stepping outside to pee.

He didn't seem to be thinking too well, kind of muddled, and he kept getting side-tracked. It didn't feel like anything was broken, far as he could tell, since he was wedged into the crevasse like one of those cartoon sheep he'd imagined so he couldn't exactly check himself over. His legs were hanging down but he wasn't kicking them, no way. He was too shit-scared to struggle, terrified if he moved too much he'd dislodge himself and fall even further. All the way down where there'd be no coming back, deep into the ice shaft. Shafted. Christ, he was for real fucking shafted.

It wasn't full dark where he was, a couple of body lengths below the surface. Kind of a blue gloom, with the sky lightening slowly as dawn crept in. Fraser would know he was gone by now and Ray knew Fraser'd be looking for him, but it'd been snowing when Ray'd stepped outside in the pre-dawn near-dark—not heavy snow, but steady. How long would it take for those soft-looking flakes to fill up his tracks? To wipe out any sign that he'd been swallowed by the ice?  Ray figured it wouldn't take long. He was pretty sure he hadn't been down here very long, but it sure felt like an age. An ice age. At least he was right-way up; he didn't think he'd've handled being stuck head first, staring down into the ice-hole that'd sucked him in.

He tried calling out again but his voice was hoarse and weak. Should've had one of them lapel-whistles like they had on life-jackets—he remembered a cute blonde air hostess demoing it one time on a flight back to Chicago from New York.  Of course, his lips'd stick to metal so it'd have to be plastic, and it'd need to be right where he could turn his head and blow, 'cause his arms were pinned to his sides like someone'd stuffed him into a cannon ready to be shot across a circus tent. Ray wished to God they had. 

Trouble was that with the snow falling and the darkness of pre-dawn, he'd gotten turned around out there and lost sight of the tent. Instead of stopping in his tracks and calling for Fraser, like Fraser'd told him to do if he ever got lost, he'd thought he could find his way back. Okay, yeah, and he'd felt pretty goddamn dumb, standing there like a big useless kid bawling for his Mom. So fucking stupid, to wander off in the first place, and then not call for help, and then fall in a crevasse. There'd be no finding old Franklin's hand now, but even if it was nothin' but bones these days, if Franklin wanted to reach down his cold dead hand and give Ray a lift out, Ray'd take it, no question.

The shivering spasms had almost stopped, and Ray knew that wasn't good. He could feel everything seizing up with the cold—his thoughts, his blood, his muscles. Hypothermia. He was like a car caught in a big frost or a snowstorm, the engine freezing solid. And he wasn't full of antifreeze.

He jerked awake, and that was another bad sign, damn it, if he was dropping off. Had he heard something? A noise? He croaked again but it wasn't very loud. Distantly, he heard something bark. Was that . . . Dief?

"Dfff . . ." Ray slurred. His tongue wouldn't work. "Ffff . . ."

"Ray? Ray, is that you? Oh, thank God. Good work, Diefenbaker." Ray couldn't tilt his head back far enough to look up, but the dark blue of his ice prison was briefly illuminated. A flashlight. Fraser had a flashlight. Dief barked again.

"Ray, listen carefully. I want you to hold very still, all right? I'm going to get a rope down to you."

"Cccc . . ." Ray tried, teeth chattering.  No way he could get his arms up to grab a rope, stuffed into the ice crack like a sardine, and even if he could, he'd never be able to hold onto it while he was pulled out.

"Hmm," Fraser said. "Yes, I see what you mean. Just keep still, Ray, while I make some arrangements, then we'll get you out. Can you do that for me?"

"Cccc . . ." Ray said, meaning _can't move so what the fuck d'you think, Fraser—I'm gonna dance the Macarena down here?_

"Absolutely, good point," Fraser said. "Back in a jiffy."

"Dddd . . ." Ray mumbled. _Don't go. Don't leave me._ But Fraser was gone and even if he came back there was no way he could get Ray out, jammed in like he was. At least Ray wouldn't die alone. That was something.

Maybe he passed out again, or dozed, his brain too cold to keep ticking over. Then Dief barked, like he was down a long tunnel. Nope, that wasn't right, 'cause it was Ray in the tunnel.

"Hang on, Ray," someone said, "just hang on." Bits of snow and ice rained down on him, adding to the frozen crust half covering his head and shoulders after the fall.

Someone grunted, then a heavy thing fell on Ray. A . . . snake? No, a rope. It was an effort to crack his eyes open and he couldn't see too good. A coil of rope lay just inches away, between the part of his chest that wasn't stuck tight, and the icy wall. He stared at it blearily. Maybe he could catch it in his teeth, but then what? Ray doubted he could get his mouth open far enough, let alone muster any power in his jaw muscles. No way was Fraser gonna be able to pull him up with Ray hanging on by his teeth. That was a figure of speech, anyway, 'less you were one of those circus acrobats or something.

More snow fell on him, and Fraser said, "Apologies, Ray, but I need to get the rope under your arms, if I can just . . . ah, yes."

What the ever-loving fuck? Fraser was _right there_ , hanging down somehow, head first and pink in the face, right there, pushing at Ray's shoulder, no, pushing _under_ his shoulder, forcing the rope through under his arms and somehow pulling it round and knotting it on Ray's chest, clipping on one of those ring things, a carburetor, no, that was cars. A carbinator, some fucking thing.

" _Ray_ ," Fraser said, urgently, and Ray realized he'd nodded off again. "Ray, are you hurt? Is anything broken?"

Ray tried to shake his head, but it just wobbled feebly. "Nnn . . . ," he managed.

Fraser nodded seriously, which looked pretty weird, upside down. Ray would've grinned, but his face was frozen. "Right, then. This may be a little rough, I'm sorry, but there's really no other way to get you out. Well, and me as well, now." Fraser's upside down face was real close to Ray's now, and then Fraser shoved his hands into Ray's armpits as best he could, in where the rope was tied. The side of Fraser's face was pressed against Ray's now, burning hot all along Ray's cold cheek.

Fraser gave a shrill whistle, right in Ray's ear, deafening him and making him jerk. Dief barked again up above, urgently, the sound of his barks fading off as he moved away. Then there was a jolt, and a lot more snow fell, and the rope around Ray's chest tightened sharply, cutting into him. Fraser's gloved hands thrust further under his arms, clutching his parka, and they banged together and then Ray was slipping, he was loose and falling and he cried out, hoarse, because he was gonna drag Fraser down as well and they'd both be shafted. This was Ray's fuck up—he couldn't take Fraser with him.

"Nnnnh!" he croaked, but they were still moving, sliding, and Fraser had him gripped tight, and Ray's head banged on some ice sticking out from the wall of the hole as Fraser grunted and clung to him and the rope cut in painfully around Ray's chest and armpits.

Then there was light and they were being dragged up over the lip of the crevasse and through the snow like some fucked up toboggan ride, except they _were_ the toboggan, plowing through the ice crust and wet snow so Ray could hardly breathe. Fraser yelled something and whistled again and how in hell he could do that while being dragged backwards through a snowdrift, Ray had no fucking clue, but the dragging stopped, and they lay there, Ray dazed and Fraser panting harshly. In the distance, Dief barked.

After a moment, Fraser struggled up and cleared Ray's face of snow. Ray made as though to move, which, nope. No way his arms or legs were doing anything—he couldn't even feel them.

"Don't try to move, Ray, I'll get the sled," Fraser said, and vanished. Then there were more whistles and the calls Fraser used for the dogs, and Ray was being lifted onto the sled, and they were off, Ray staring up at the overcast sky. It was so bright it hurt his eyes, so he shut them.

Fraser was slapping him awake, manhandling him into the tent, and Ray was dimly aware of being undressed, layer after layer, then more layers of dry clothes, and he was in his sleeping bag, but it was bigger, joined up to Fraser's, and Fraser was in there as well.

"I'm sorry, Ray, the next part's not going to be pleasant for you," Fraser said, putting Ray's hands in his armpits which were hot like a goddamn furnace, burning Ray's fingers. His feet were burning, too, jammed in between Fraser's calves, and Ray sobbed and shuddered and cursed Fraser for setting him on fire, and Fraser held him down and held him tight and burned the ice right out of him until they were both exhausted and Ray could feel his legs and arms again, and move them.

He moved them around Fraser and held on, burying his face in Fraser's neck to thaw out his nose. "That's good, Ray, you warm yourself up," Fraser said, sounding a little choked, even though it was Ray's voice that'd gotten shredded from all the yelling and cursing, down in the crevasse.

Ray figured he must've slept for a while. A real sleep, not the frozen shutting down he'd slipped into in the ice. He wasn't sure if Fraser slept as well, but he thought not, 'cause he surfaced a few times and Fraser was kind of rocking him, humming something softly under his breath.

"Whazza song?" Ray finally managed.

"Hmm? Oh, _Eine Kleine Nachtmusik_ , by Mozart," Fraser said. "Are you feeling a little better?"

"Yeah," Ray said. "Thanks for, you know, saving my ass."

"You're very welcome, Ray," Fraser said, easing back to look at him. "Ray, I need to check again if you sustained any injuries in the fall. I had to focus on the hypothermia, and there was nothing evident when I was changing your clothes, but–"

"I'm okay," Ray said. "Bruised where I got stuck, and from the rope, y'know."

"Yes, I am sorry. It wasn't an ideal harness with just the one rope, but there wasn–"

"Hey, Fraser, no, you did great. I dunno how you rescued me, but it was greatness, for sure. I figured that was _it_ for me. Curtains. Thought I was gonna join old Franklin's hand in the deep freeze."

"That was never going to happen, Ray," Fraser said, staring at Ray intently. "I would never. I'd always . . ."

"Yeah, I know, Frase. I know." Ray smiled, then winced. His lips were cracked. "How in hell did you get us out of there? Did Dief pull us up?"

"No, the dog team," Fraser said. "Dief wouldn't have had the strength, by himself. He ran on ahead of them to show them what to do, though."

"Kind of like a cheerleader, huh?"

"Just so, Ray."

There was a pause, and Ray moved his feet back to press against Fraser's. They were both wearing two layers of socks, but it felt good. "I'm sorry I fucked up," Ray told Fraser's chest. "I only . . . I went out to piss, and it was snowing, and real dark. Got turned around and wandered off. It was dumb."

"I'm just very glad that you're safe again, Ray," Fraser said. "I . . . for a while, I . . ." He shivered.

"Hey, you been givin' me all your body-heat, Frase," Ray said, pulling Fraser close against him again. "C'mon, take some of it back."

"I _am_ a little cold, Ray, now you mention it," Fraser said, and burrowed in, his arms tight around Ray, tucking his head in beneath Ray's chin.

Ray held on tight as well. The dogs would need breakfast soon, especially after all the excitement, but they could wait a bit longer. "Sing me some more of that song, Frase," Ray said.

After a moment, Fraser started humming.

 


	4. Ray tells a creepy car story

 

 

After the crevasse adventure, they stayed put for a couple of days to rest up Ray's bruises. Well, to get him a little less sore, maybe—the bruises were going to be around for a while. Fraser didn't rest, so much. He took the chance to go hunting with Dief, hoping for some fresh meat for dinner. Not so much for the dogs, as he explained. "I might get a rock ptarmigan or two, Ray, if I'm lucky. There aren't any caribou herds close by and we're too far south of the ice-pack for seals, which is just as well, really."

"Polar bears?" Ray asked. He'd been doing his reading.

"Indeed, Ray. And a bird or two won't go far with the dogs—a lot of what's on the sled is for them, like the blocks of lard and the high-energy kibble."

"You should show me how you do it, Frase. Makin' up the dog food." Ray figured if anything happened to Fraser he was just plain fucked, but nearly getting popsicled had freaked him out, so he thought he should learn some survival stuff and quit being a total deadweight.

"I will, Ray, tonight. Meanwhile, it would help if you gathered snow and melted it. It's hard in this climate to keep the dogs hydrated as well as adequately fed."

"Yeah, I can do that okay." Fraser still hesitated. "We'll be fine, me an' the dogs. I got aspirin if I need it."

Fraser nodded and looked about for Dief, and Ray had the oddest urge to kiss him goodbye on the cheek like he was Harriet Homemaker, left behind to putter about the camp while Fraser headed off to bring home the bacon. Or the tar-pigeon, whatever. The thought freaked him out but it was also kind of nice, which freaked him out even more, so after Fraser had skied away he stamped off on his snowshoes to gather up snow. And maybe tidy up a little.

It was most likely shock, or Stockholm syndrome, not that Fraser'd exactly kidnapped him, but he was pretty hard to say no to when he was all worked up about a plan. After the Muldoon affair wrapped up, and after nutty old Buck Frobisher kitted them out with the sled and supplies to head off in search of Franklin's hand, they were underway before Ray'd had time to think about quite how crazy the whole trip was. Part of him wanted to find old Franklin's hand, but another part was scared, the further away they got from any roads or townships. Fraser'd explained that, it being March, they'd lose the snow for the sled in a few weeks, even though it'd been a cold winter and the snow was lingering longer than usual. The further North they went, though, the more snow there'd be.

He melted snow and gave the dogs a drink, then lay down for a nap and woke up hungry, ate some rations and sat in the sun, waiting for the aspirin he'd taken to kick in. He lay down after lunch to read some more about the old explorers, and fell asleep again, waking when Fraser returned.

Fraser had caught a couple of grouse-like birds, their feathers white with some brown mixed in. "Ptarmigans don't have many natural predators out here and they rarely see humans," Fraser explained as he plucked the birds and spitted them over a fire. "They don't fly away and you can knock them over with a stone if your aim's accurate. I learned how to do it from Inuit friends when I was young." Ray bet Fraser was a crack shot when it came to braining grouse. Him, he'd be lucky to get a rock within a yard of the things.

Ray'd felt kind of sorry for the poor trusting grouse-pigeons when Fraser told him about catching them, but he set that aside pretty damn quick when he smelled them cooking. Dinner was a miracle, the birds maybe a bit gamey but compared to their usual rations, Ray was in heaven, moaning a little as he ripped the delicious roast meat off the delicate bones with his teeth.

"You're feeling somewhat restored, I take it?" Fraser asked.

"Yeah, sure. These grouse-things're really good, Frase. Best food I ever tasted, and I got Madame Wu's Spicy Chicken Wings on the list."

"High praise indeed." Fraser smiled and leaned over to wipe some grease off Ray's chin with a finger. Ray grinned back at him, suddenly a little shy, and rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.

Fraser showed Ray how he melted lard in hot water in a big pan over the fire, then measured out a fuckton of kibble for the dogs and mixed in the liquid. They put the bowls out along the picket line, and Fraser got Ray to repeat the process, making up a second batch to be left absorbing the water overnight, to be served up to the dogs as mush for breakfast.

The shadows were lengthening into evening and despite Ray's naps, he was still sore and inclined to want to lie down after all the stirring and toting, so they called it a night. They hadn't broken camp, so the sleeping bags were still zipped together. Ray'd decided to leave them like that when he was tidying up earlier. He'd tried not to think about it.

Fraser didn't comment, just slid into the conjoined bags and curled up behind Ray once he'd gotten himself sorted out and climbed in alongside Fraser. The warmth was good, especially as he was still aching some.

"Do you think you'll be able to sleep tonight?" Fraser asked.

Ray snorted. "Doubt it. Had a nap earlier, and I can still feel the bruises, y'know, so I'm guessin' it'll take a while."

"Did you take some aspirin?" Fraser asked, concerned.

"Yeah, sure. It'll kick in pretty soon. I'm okay, Frase."

Neither of them said anything for a while, but Ray could tell Fraser wasn't asleep. He shifted a little, restlessly.

"Maybe we should have another story," Fraser suggested.

"Yeah, okay. My turn, I guess," Ray said. "I don't got none about fairies, although my Polish grandma used to tell me some old weird Polish shit about dragons and bears and water-monsters. She used to give me nightmares, as a kid." He thought for a moment. "Pa told me one, though. One of those urban legends, about the _czarna Wolga_ —the black Volga."

"A modern fairy-tale," Fraser said, interested.

"Yeah, no. More like a horror story. I think it dates from the sixties, from Warsaw. People used to talk about a black limo they said drove around the streets of Warsaw. It was a Volga, which was what the Communist party high muckety-mucks drove around in. So it was all black, but with fancy detailing like the wheel rims were white an' it had white lace curtains at the windows. Must've looked like a hearse, but that was what the party officials used back then—plus maybe it _was_ kind of a hearse, come to think of it."

"Did it transport people the state had arrested?" Fraser asked.

"Nah, it wasn't official—like I said, it's one of those modern myths. You gotta remember everyone was freaked out back then. They were all  paranoid, and the Polish secret police were on everyone's case, spying and shit, and everyone was made to inform on their neighbors, even their family. It was a bad time."

"Indeed. So official cars like black Volgas would have been like birds of ill omen, greatly feared," Fraser said, nodding.

"Uh huh," Ray said. "The UB, the _Urząd Bezpieczeństwa_ —that was the secret police. The Public Security Office or some damn thing. They disappeared two of my dad's uncles. So anyway, people said this black Volga was driven about by a priest, or a nun, I dunno why, but this is Poland, right? They always gotta bring the goddamn Catholic church into it. Sometimes they said the devil drove it, which works for a proper horror story, I guess."

"Understandable demonization of a symbol of the fascist state by an oppressed populace," Fraser agreed, snuggling in a little closer behind Ray.

" . . . er, yeah. That sorta thing." Ray tried to remember the rest of the legend. "So the story was, the driver'd stop a passer-by to ask for directions or the time or some bullshit, and then snatch them. Just pull 'em right into the car, there in the street. People said they took kids, mostly—Pa used to say that was why I should never get in a car with a stranger, because who knew if it was the bad guys from the _czarna Wolga_ , come to America like everyone else and still up to no good."

"A cautionary tale to frighten children, yes," Fraser said. "Many folk tales have a similar purpose." He stretched and rolled his shoulders, his breath warm on the back of Ray's neck. Ray felt his heart-rate kick up a notch. "So what befell victims taken by the black Volga?"

"Well, people said there was a blood transfusion set-up inside the limo and they stole the person's blood to sell to rich leukemia patients. Drained 'em dry. Some versions of the story say they whipped out the kidneys of whoever they caught, and sold them on the black market as well."

"A classic tale of evil," Fraser said with something like relish. "You know, Ray, although I can see how the trappings were added with this being a Volga thus representing the much-loathed Communists, I think the story may go way back to the old Bohemian legends. It's the blood transfusion detail that gives it away."

"Bohemian? Like hippies or beatniks, those long-hair dudes in Greenwich Village? They got legends too?"

"Very probably. But no, I meant the Bohemia of medieval Europe. Bohemia, Transylvania—they were all fairly close to Poland and they had similar myths."

"Oh, wait, Transylvania?" Ray smirked, "You mean like with Dracula?"

"Quite so, Ray. I think your black Volga tale is a modern retelling of vampire legends, with the hated secret police as the vampires. The victims were drained of their blood, after all."

"Heh, yeah, I can see that now," Ray said, feeling drowsy, the aspirin finally easing his aches. "My old man mostly collected spooky stories about cars. Like the speedster James Dean crashed, and the limo JFK got shot in. D'you know both those cars were bad luck after, an' kept causing accidents?"

"I did not know that, no. Fascinating." There was a comfortable pause, then Fraser spoke again, his voice soft against Ray's hair. "I trust that recounting stories about evil and haunted cars won't keep you awake, Ray?"

"Nah, not cars. I c'n handle cars," Ray said sleepily.

"Indeed you can. Good night, Ray."

" 'night, Frase." There was a soft touch to the nape of Ray's neck. He was sliding into sleep so it was hard to tell, but it almost felt like a kiss.

 


	5. Ray fails at hunting grouses

 

After they'd camped near the crevasse to let Ray rest up and heal his bruises, they took off toward the east again. Fraser kept fretting about whether the snow would last, but as far as Ray could see there was plenty of the damn stuff everywhere, ready to get in his boots or trip him up in snowshoes. They made good time—not that they were on the clock, except with the weather, racing the spring melt so the dogs had enough snow to pull the sled. Ray figured Fraser was mostly fussing for the sake of it, 'cause there was no sign of any thaw that he could see, and it was still cold as a witch's tit.

There were small lakes everywhere. Tarns, Fraser called them, saying it was a word from the Scottish highlands. The lakes or ponds were all frozen solid and the only way Ray could tell what they were was from the lay of the land—the going got smoother when they sledded over a tarn. So with all the flat lakes they were crossing, they had a few good days and covered a lot of ground. Or ice, whatever, it was all snow to Ray—flat snow or lumpy snow, hillocks and hillsides of snow.

Fraser was a big fan of snow, and even Ray was coming around to appreciating it a little more. He could see differences in the texture now, had a better idea which snow would be good for sledding, and which might be hiding too-deep drifts and bog the dogs down. The snow sure loved Ray—he'd noticed that all through their trek to catch Muldoon. It stuck to his clothes like polystyrene fluff, like it was iron filings and he was a magnet. Fraser, on the other hand, must've been giving off an anti-snow vibe. He was generally pristine with just a little on his boots, and the rest of him shedding the white stuff like Teflon.

They found a good campsite by a small lake where the ice was thin enough at the edge that they could break it and haul up water, rather than having to burn fuel to melt it. The land around the lake was all in small hillocks, which Fraser said was a thing left over from some Ice Age, from the glaciers. It was weird to think of all this being covered in glaciers. Like a science fiction B-movie, big walls of ice chomping their way across the land like bulldozers, crushing everything down flat and leaving behind the lake-puddles. Fraser said that was why things were kind of smoothed and scraped down, although some of that was the snow, cloaking everything except for a few stands of trees.

"Good ptarmigan country," Fraser said, over dinner that night.

"Yeah?" Ray looked up, interested—it'd be great to have some more roast pigeon-thing. "Hey, Fraser, can I tag along, now I'm okay again? See the big hunter-gatherer in action?"

"Certainly, Ray, although it's more hunting than gathering, in the Arctic. We're too late for crowberries—they ripen in Autumn—and the Inuit subsist in the wild mainly on fish and meat and blubber."

"So Inuit moms aren't always tellin' their kids to eat their veggies, then?"

"No, Ray. Possibly a little in the settlements, these days. But traditionally, vegetation wasn't a large part of the diet." 

"Huh. Don't they get, like, vitamin deficiencies?"

"Not at all. There's a lot of vitamin A and D in liver and fresh meats, vitamin C in seal brains and kelp, and they do gather some herbs, like Labrador tea, or _mamaittuqutik_. Then there are cloudberries—my personal favorite—but they're also an Autumn fruit. We might find some tubers, I suppose. A pity it's the wrong season to make you some _akutuq_ —berries mixed with fat—a type of Inuit ice-cream."

"Yeah, no, I'll pass on the berries-with-fat, thanks, Frase," Ray said, making a face. That pretty much summed up the diet this far north: fat with everything. Water with fat and kibble for the dogs, and meat or fish with fat for Ray and Fraser. Berries with fat, jeez.

"You don't know what you're missing, Ray," Fraser assured him. Ray figured he was probably teasing—you couldn't always tell with Fraser if he was pulling your leg and he had a pretty good poker face when he wanted. Ray gave him a noncommittal  eyebrow.

"So, hunting, tomorrow?" Ray made his eyebrows into more of a question.

"Yes, I think we deserve a rest day," Fraser agreed. Ray suppressed a snort. Only Fraser would think hiking miles through the frozen Arctic wastes on a hunting trip was a rest day.

The trouble with hunting tar-pigeons—although Fraser said that wasn't the right name so Ray'd decided to just call them grouse—was that they weren't tar-colored at all. Nope, they were white with a few bits of brown, exactly like every other damn thing around.  Fraser, of course, had no problem seeing them, even though they didn't squawk or flap or do anything a bird should do if it wanted to get hit by a rock, which, okay, chalk one up to the birds. Instead they hunkered down and played possum, which meant if you could see them they were sitting ducks, or sitting grouses (grouse? grice?) and Fraser managed to knock two of them out cold after a couple of hours of trekking and crouching very still in the freezing cold, while the snow wormed its way into the seams of Ray's clothing and fell right off Fraser as though he had an anti-snow force-field.

Fraser was a crack shot with the stones, like it was cricket and he was bowling the grouses out for six. (Ray knew sweet fuck-all about cricket, but sometimes it was on the Sports Channel and he got sucked into watching. It was a good sport for helping you fall asleep.) Fraser's grouse-bowling skills were kind of terrifying and kind of hot, same as everything else about him.

When it came to being Ray's turn, after Fraser'd located another little huddle of grouses hunkered down trying to be invisible, Ray knew he didn't have a prayer with the stone throwing. He put on his glasses—which actually helped a lot in terms of seeing the damn things, so maybe he should be wearing them more out here, plus they might keep his eyeballs warmer—and pulled out the pistol Buck had loaned him for the trip. Ray hadn't really believed Fraser but it was true, the birds really _didn't_ run off, so he and Fraser had crept up real close.

He was squinting at the head of one of the grouses—not the easiest shot, but they were small enough he figured a body-shot would blow them into mincemeat and not leave anything for the spit—when suddenly he got queasy. Even the deadbeats Ray arrested got a shouted warning, so it didn't feel like a fair fight. The damn birds were just tryin' to get by, same as he was, same as anyone. He could eat rations; he didn't _need_ to kill them to survive. Not today, anyway.

Ray lowered the gun. "Look, Fraser, you already got a couple for dinner, right? I don't wanna be wasteful."

"Very commendable, Ray, and environmentally sound—not that ptarmigan are endangered."

They hiked back to the camp, Fraser's birds—their necks wrung before ever regaining consciousness, which was as good a way to go as any, Ray figured—dangling from his pack.

Ray chewed over the day's events. "I couldn't do it, Frase," he said at last, as they crossed a frozen stream and Fraser helped him up the far bank. "They weren't harming nobody. Didn't seem right, somehow."

"I do understand, Ray," Fraser said, nodding. "It reminds me of when I ran away from home to hunt my first caribou. Quinn caught me—you remember him, from Inuvik.  He said to me: 'To kill something without need is wrong.' But I was dead set on becoming a man and I thought killing my first caribou would achieve that." Fraser sighed and shook his head at his younger self.

"So did you kill it then, Frase?" Ray asked, hauling his ass out of a deep drift that had been lurking, pretending to be a shallow one.

"Yes, I shot it. I was determined and there was no reasoning with me, I'm afraid."

"Good thing you grew outta that," Ray muttered, whacking his leg to get the clinging snow off. "And then you were a man? How old were you?"

"Twelve. But my Inuit friends had made their first kills by that age. I felt left out."

"Twelve, jeez. So what, you killed it and it felt good to be a man, or what?"

"Or what, Ray. The moment I killed it I knew I'd made a terrible mistake. Quinn let me, because he saw that I needed to learn, and that was the only way to get his message through to me—that hunting without need is wrong. I've never forgotten."

Ray pondered that for a while. "But we don't . . . strictly speaking we don't _need_ the grouses, do we? We got rations."

"Yes, but out here, survival is a real issue, and the fresh meat will be good for us—more vitamins, like I said. Plus, you needed to see how it's done, hunting ptarmigan. But I agree—two is plenty for tonight."

Ray figured he only needed to know how it was done in case Fraser couldn't hunt for the both of them, which didn't bear contemplating for a whole bunch of reasons.

Fraser had been mulling it all over as well. "You're a better man than me, Ray," he said, after a while. Ray went to protest but Fraser raised a hand. "No, hear me out. You sensed that killing the extra birds was morally wrong. You've got a kind heart, and your strength of character—it’s very appealing. I was driven by far baser motives when I killed that caribou years ago. Conformity, pride, competition." He sighed again.

"Chrissakes Fraser, you were twelve! You think I was makin' great life choices when I was twelve? I was mostly filching smokes from my old man or hangin' around Tina Marconi from Biology, trying to figure out if she'd knock my lights out if I tried to kiss her."

"Dear me, yes. Not an age I'd be keen to revisit," Fraser agreed.

They came over the last rise and saw the camp, the dogs at their pickets beginning to stir, looking forward to another feast of mushed kibble-with-fat. He never did kiss Tina Marconi, Ray thought. Instead, he'd kissed Marcel McNulty in the baseball equipment shed, and Marcel _had_ punched him, and Ray'd told his mom he'd caught an unlucky elbow sliding home, and his dad that he'd stood up for a friend and got his own licks in. Then the next year, Stella happened, and all thoughts about kissing boys had gone right out of his head.

After Stella, he'd gone a little crazy and fooled around some in clubs with pretty boys, or traded blow-jobs with a couple of guys at the gym, but none of it had mattered. Not until Fraser.

Ray followed him down the slope. He might not have exactly what he wanted with Fraser, but he could live with that. Being here, being together, was pretty much greatness, even with the goddamn snow getting in places it sure as hell shouldn't be, and his aching legs, and everything-with-fat.

Anyhow, tonight they'd have roasted grouse and a fire, and they'd curl up together in the tent later on and tell stories. Life didn’t get a whole lot better than that, in Ray's opinion.

 


	6. Change of plans and other dramas

 

 

It took a while before Ray realized something hinky was going on.

The reason he didn't notice was the goddamn light. For days it'd been overcast, a bright haze in the sky that at least cut down on glare shining off the snow right into Ray's eyes. On sunny days Ray'd been squinting so hard he almost gave himself a migraine.

His glasses were no good against the glare, and he didn't have sunglasses—they hadn't exactly pre-planned this trip and when he'd asked Buck Frobisher if he could borrow a pair of sunnies Buck had clapped him on the shoulder, knocking him half into the sofa, and trumpeted that he wouldn't have the damn things in the house, as they weakened the eyes. "Can't survive out here without your eyesight, young man. You'd be dead inside a week!" Which was exactly what you wanted to hear when you were heading out into the wilderness with Fraser and a deaf wolf. Fraser had shown him how to tie his scarf so there was a narrow slit to see out of, but it messed with Ray's peripheral vision and made him trip over his feet so he went ass over tits into snowdrifts twice as much as usual.

The haze was at least a relief from all that, but it was real confusing, the flat bright light shining down from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Ray wasn't an orienteering hotshot like Fraser, who had a compass but could tell which way the North Pole was just with his watch and a twig. Hell, he could probably tell it by sticking his tongue out and tasting the Earth's magnetic field, for all Ray knew.

The shadowless light and not having any clue where the sun was left Ray all at sea, and it was a complete trackless wilderness, so he got turned around. Plus, Fraser kept taking the dogs on detours around rockier places where the snow cover was thinning out, and one time they passed a small lake-puddle where even Ray could see the ice was half-melted. Fraser frowned at it as they passed, then got a preoccupied, pained kind of look, similar to that time he found out Turnbull'd been filing notes about walk-in inquiries by the nearness of the person's address to Buckingham Palace, instead of alphabetically.

So basically, Ray had no fucking clue where they were, or where they were headed. It shouldn't have bothered him, because this was totally Fraser's ball-game. Sure, Ray might have been the one who'd suggested they go looking for old Franklin's hand in a moment of insanity, but he knew he wouldn't last five minutes out here on his own. Fraser ruled here, and Ray was his side-kick. He liked to have some idea though, getting Fraser to show him on the map where they'd traveled that day so he could mark their progress.

They'd been headed out from Inuvik to the northeast and then they'd gone due east for a while, before Fraser said they had to slant down southeast to get through a pass in some hills. Then there'd been the crevasse disaster, and Ray figured Fraser was keeping them more to the south after that, to avoid ice-fields. He hadn't drawn their route on the map for a few days, though, as Fraser'd kept him busy with chores and card games and chatting about . . . hmm. Fraser was trying to distract him. Something was definitely hinky.

Ray brooded about it all the next morning, and at noon, when they were stopped for lunch and Ray was heating water to make soup, the sun came out. It had been a cold morning, probably as the cloud cover was lightening, and there was an icy wind chilling the left side of Ray's face. The east side, 'cause with the sun out, he could see they'd been headed south, in fact pretty much southwest, more or less back where they'd come from.

"We taking a detour, Fraser?"

Fraser paused where he was messing with the ropes holding their supplies on the sled, and his shoulders got a defensive set. "I'm not sure I understand you, Ray," he said, not meeting Ray's eyes.

"Well, I ain't the expert about maps and compasses and the like, but I'd have sworn the Beaufort Sea an' old Franklin's hand were way the fuck northeast from here."

Fraser straightened and frowned off vaguely northward. "Actually, Ray, the Beaufort Sea runs across the north of Alaska, the Yukon and the Territories. The route the Franklin expedition took came to grief a lot further east. They never made it to the Beaufort Sea."

"Yeah? So they were reachin' out for it, I got that much. And don't change the subject," Ray said, getting mad now, stirring the soup a bit too hard so some spilled and sizzled in the fire. The nights were long enough out here without Fraser keeping him in the dark as well. He waved a hand southward. "We're headed southwest now and you didn't tell me. That ain't buddies, Fraser."

Fraser took a breath in and turned, looking somewhat shame-faced. "I was going to . . . I was afraid of disappointing you, Ray."

Ray frowned. "About what?"

Fraser grimaced. "You're right, we're headed back southeast again. We'll cover different ground, but eventually we'll return to Inuvik."

"So we're just giving up? Throwin' it all away?" Ray found he'd stopped stirring the soup and was gripping the stirring-stick like a club. He made his hand unclench.

Fraser spread his hands. "Ray, I'm so sorry, but the spring thaw's beginning—you've seen the signs yourself. By the time we'd finished with Muldoon it was almost too late for this trip, but you were so keen, and I didn't want . . ."

Ray looked away, still angry. "I don't appreciate bein' treated like a kid, Fraser. I know I kind of am, out here, but you still could've told me. We could've thrashed it out together."

Fraser dropped down to sit on a bundle of supplies, staring at his leather-gloved hands. "Yes, Ray. I'm sorry. It was stupid of me to postpone being frank with you. I won't do that again."

"Yeah, right," Ray said snippily. He wasn't letting Fraser off that easily. "Not 'til the next time you decide you know better'n me."

Fraser looked up, pained. "Ray, I don't think that. I . . . it was cowardice, I'm afraid. You were so keen on this expedition and I didn't have the heart to tell you–"

Ray held up his hand, hot soup steaming off the end of the stick. "Wait up. Was the whole thing just bullshit then, right from the word go? About finding Franklin's Hand an' all that?" He glared at Fraser.

"I . . . it was never really . . . look, Ray, it's a line from a _song_. There _is_ no 'Hand of Franklin'; it's a metaphor. And the place where the Franklin expedition became ice-bound is a vast distance away. There's no way we could get there overland—certainly not at this season, anyway, and not with the rushed preparations we made, most of the gear borrowed from Buck. It's a day's travel by dog-sled even to Inuvik, from Buck's cabin."

"So why are we even _here_ then, huh?"

Fraser bit his lip. "Well, I, ah, I thought that you'd enjoyed . . .  that is, _I'd_ enjoyed . . . the whole wilderness experience. When we made our way overland after jumping out of the airplane."

Ray looked at him skeptically. "When we nearly froze to death on the mountain. When we fell in the crevasse."

"Well, yes, it was certainly more dramatic than one might have wished. But I suppose I just wanted more of the camaraderie, the . . . companionship." Fraser clasped his hands, then glanced over at Ray. "And this is a lot further south than Tuktoyaktuk, Ray. It's not as dangerous, even though we did run into an ice-field, nonetheless. But your bruises from the crevasse have healed up, haven't they?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ray said grudgingly, tipping the soup into two battered aluminum mugs and passing one to Fraser. "But we gotta stop fallin' into crevasses, Fraser, jeez."

"Absolutely, Ray. My feelings exactly."

They sipped in silence for a while, then Ray wiped his mouth. "So we're just toolin' around out here goin' nowhere?"

Fraser shrugged. "Well, not _nowhere_. It's still a trip, we're just just not anywhere near the old route of the Franklin expedition. They were, after all, in sailing boats, and we’re traveling overland."

Ray looked away, out where dark shapes of conifers were scattered across a great snow-filled valley. "And we can't keep going because you reckon it's thawing? Looks pretty damn cold out there to me."

"Yes, but there are signs, Ray. The smaller tarns are melting, and there's less snow-cover overall. If we continued, we'd risk not having enough snow for the dogs to pull the sled."

"So, what, we'd have to walk back out?"

"If we could. We can cover a great deal more distance more easily via skis and sled. On foot we'd have a far narrower margin of survival, and our supplies would run out."

"Yeah, but there's grouses." Ray knew he was being stubborn, but he was still smarting at having to give up the idea of the quest.

"We could never hunt enough game for ourselves and the dogs, Ray. It was a terrible dilemma for the old explorers."

"What, running out of food for the dogs? Didn't they just turn 'em loose to hunt for themselves?"

"They're domesticated animals, Ray. They've never been wild like Dief—not that he's not thoroughly domesticated these days." Dief barked derisively, as if to say he preferred doughnuts but could still catch his dinner out here if he had to. Fraser raised his eyebrows. "Yes, but it's taken you a while to toughen up again after all that soft living in Chicago." Dief huffed and curled up in a ball, tail over his nose.

Ray drank some more soup before it got cold. "So what'd the dogs of the old explorers eat, if they got caught in a thaw out the back of beyond?"

"Each other," Fraser said grimly. "Sometimes the expedition leaders even planned it that way, knowing there was no way they could get the dogs back to base."

Ray stared at him, appalled. "Tell me that ain't the plan here, Fraser?"

Fraser waved a placating hand. "Good Lord no, Ray. But it's one reason we have to turn back now and start making our way towards civilization again."

"Jeez Louise," Ray said, feeling a little sick. Those old explorers were bastards. Maybe they were all half-crazy with the cold and the snow, and not seeing anyone half the year, like that weird Delmar coot who'd pulled them out of the first crevasse. Ray finished off the last of his soup and got some pemmican out of a bag, passing half to Fraser. "So we're on Plan B, then? Headin' back to Inuvik before it all thaws out?"

Fraser nodded. "We should have plenty of snow to travel on, and we can still enjoy the rest of the trip."

"And then what, Fraser? What happens then?" Fraser stared at his pemmican and said nothing, but Ray knew the answer. Fraser would be posted somewhere like Tuktoyaktuk and Ray . . . where the fuck was he going to go, anyway? The precinct had the real Vecchio back; they didn't need him. Ray'd have to start over all again somewhere new, under his own name this time.

Did he want that? A new partner? No telling who he'd get, but most likely a jerk like Huey or Dewey. He wouldn't be partnered with someone like Fraser. Not with a Mountie who talked to his deaf wolf. Not with someone who solved cases and licked things and was stupidly self-sacrificing and the single most annoying person Ray'd ever met. Well, apart from Vecchio.

He chewed his pemmican gloomily. Life as Fraser's partner had been one insanity after another, but he'd pretty much come to rely on lurching from one crazy thing to the next.

He wasn't looking forward to adjusting to normal life again. Not one bit. 

 


	7. Fraser just can't resist those old Inuit tales

 

They pressed on through the afternoon and were both still subdued at that night's camp. Ray lay awake for a long time staring into the dark and listening to Fraser not-sleep beside him—no spooning tonight; Fraser was keeping a careful distance. He guessed they were both trying to figure out what they'd do when the trip ended, and for his part, the notion that they'd been on an expedition had let him forget it was going to end all too soon. Now he knew they were just looping around and back again, it wasn't so easy to stave off thinking about what came after. 

Ray was tired the next day, with gritty eyes, but it was fine weather with blue skies, the air a little warmer. They passed another pond, the ice almost completely melted, so Ray could see Fraser was right about the thaw.

He skied for a while, then rode the back of the sled, mushing the dogs. He was definitely fitter—no way he'd have been able to stay on his feet for a few hours at the start of the trip. Looking back, he'd been like some kind of invalid then, all bundled up on the sled under a big heap of furs. That was something, at least. An achievement. Not that it'd last once he got back to the city with hot dogs and pizza and way too much lousy precinct coffee. He'd just have to hit the gym and work out with the heavy bag; Ray had a feeling he'd be in the mood to punch things, that far away from Fraser.

The hard work and rhythms of survival calmed them down, so Fraser's shoulders lost their tenseness and Ray's temper mellowed. The better weather was cheering as well, even though it was the reason they had to turn back. In the evenings, Ray caught up with marking their route on the map, and they chatted and swapped stories about past cases, one-upping each other with far-fetched details.

"Okay, okay," Ray said finally, grinning at Fraser. "I know you been bustin' to tell me some more of those Inuit stories, so hit me. I'm all toughened up now—I can take it."

Fraser smiled and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "Well, I believe I may know one or two that aren't so _very_ scary, Ray. I'm reminded about this afternoon when you were jumping about cursing the mosquitoes."

"Hey, those were giant _mutant_ mosquitoes, Frase. They weren't natural, those critters."

Fraser nodded. "They're a plague in the spring, and another good reason not to be caught out here at the height of the thaw. Did you know the average caribou loses a third of a liter of blood a day to mosquito bites? A bad swarm can kill a young calf."

"Ew, gross." Ray shook his head, disgusted. "I never heard no legend about mosquitoes before."

"The Inuit have tales about everything that matters to them, and believe me, Ray, at the height of the swarming season, mosquitoes _matter_. But actually, the story's a myth, not a legend."

"Myth, legend, same difference." Ray waved a hand, wriggling his butt to get comfortable in the furs.

"Not really, Ray. A legend's a story from long ago that had some basis in fact but has been embellished across the centuries. A myth is a created story, told to explain a natural phenomenon—how the world works or how everything came to be."

"Okay," Ray said. "I'll bite. Tell me one of each sort, then."

Fraser smiled, curled up beside him. "Very well. This is the story of how mosquitoes came into the world. You can tell me at the end if it's a legend or a myth."

"A pop quiz, right," Ray said, grinning. He liked it when Fraser got all teachy.

"A very long time ago there was a savage giant," Fraser began. "He killed many people and drank their blood."

"Hey, is this another vampire story? I didn't know the Inuit had those."

"Not quite the same as the European tradition, but they have plenty of monster tales. To resume: many men tried to destroy the giant but none succeeded—everyone who fought the giant was killed."

Ray nodded. "Kind of like _Jack the Giant Killer_. I had a book with that one when I was a kid."

Fraser nodded. "As did I . . . So one time, three brothers went to the mountains where the giant lived, to kill it."

"Now, see, why are people so dumb? The monster giant had knocked everyone off, but here go these jackasses to get murdered as well?" Ray shook his head—you couldn’t reason with some people.

"It was probably a rite of passage, Ray. Young men are notoriously hot-headed."

"Yeah, _tell_ me about it," Ray said, remembering some of the stunts he'd pulled, back in the day.

Fraser took up the tale again. "The eldest brother took his weapons and went to seek out the giant alone. After a day, when he'd failed to return, the second brother went to the monster's lair, but he was killed, too."

"It's always three brothers. Why is that?" Ray asked, frowning. "And it's always the youngest one gets the princess or the magic sword or kills the monster, right?" He shook his head. "Them older brothers might as well give it up as a lost cause. They're like those dudes on Star Trek in the red shirts, just there so's to get killed off."

"You may very well be right, Ray," Fraser said, nodding. "It may be related to number symbolism and to sayings such as 'third time lucky'—but to get back to the story. The youngest brother took his bow and arrow and traveled to the place where his older brothers had gone. He hid behind huge boulders but the giant still caught him and brought his terrible club crashing down on the young man's head. When he awoke, he was inside a large game bag and was being carried towards the cave in the mountains where the giant lived. The young man felt around in the dark for his cutting stone and with it he sliced through the bag and escaped. His bow and arrows fell out as well, and he grabbed them and followed the giant, hiding behind the rocks."

"Yeah, right," Ray observed dubiously. "Only one of them magical third brothers would've made it after being brained by a _giant's_ club."

Fraser tilted his head. "Indeed, Ray. When they arrived at the cave he saw the bodies of his brothers and of many other men from the village, dead and drained of blood, lying about. When the monster turned around the young man drew his hunting bow and let his best arrow fly, aiming for the giant's chest. The arrow pierced the giant's heart but before dying he said, "Though you have killed me, I will still drink your blood."

Ray frowned. "Well no way he's a vampire then, 'cause a wooden-shafted arrow would've been like a stake, right?

"An excellent point, Ray, yes." Fraser nodded. "The young man gathered wood and brush into a pyre and dragged the giant's body over, placing it on top. He rubbed his fire-sticks together until the sparks made the dried kindling catch fire. The pyre burned for a long time until only ashes remained. Then the third brother took the ashes and threw them high into the air. The wind blew the ashes all over the world and each piece of ash turned into a mosquito. So mosquitoes drink our blood because they came from the ashes of the bloodthirsty giant."

Ray grinned. "Yeah, I could see that one coming a mile off. Okay, okay. So legends used to be real, and myths are made up. I reckon that one's a myth then, 'cause no way was it ever true, and it's a thingy, a cremation story."

Fraser smiled into the blankets. "Ah, I think you mean a creation story, Ray."

Ray snorted. "Nope—that old giant got burned up on a pyre, so it's a _cremation_ myth, get it?" He nudged Fraser with his elbow.

Fraser chuckled. "Yes, Ray, very droll."

"I already aced the pop quiz, Frase, so tell me a legend now," Ray said, happy with his pun.

"Very well. I think you'll like this one—it even has a happy ending." Fraser settled himself on his side. "Long, long ago there was a village on the coast, where the people depended on fishing and hunting to survive. Among them lived an old woman who had no children and whose husband had died years ago. She didn't starve, though, as her neighbors gave her food—as was the custom—but she was lonely, and she spent long hours walking along the shore."

Ray looked over at Fraser. "I thought the old folks like that went out on the ice to freeze themselves to death so's not to be a burden? Like whatsisname at the South Pole who said how he was going outside and he might be some time."

Fraser raised his eyebrows. "Captain Oates? It's not quite the same. The Scott expedition hadn't at that point entirely run out of supplies. Oates had gangrenous blisters on his feet and couldn't walk, but the others refused to leave him behind. Elderly Inuit might have sacrificed themselves for the tribe in a famine season, but not if there was food. The tribe would be expected to feed them if there was enough for all."

"Oh, okay." Ray waved a hand for Fraser to go on.

"One day the old woman saw a tiny polar bear cub all alone out on the ice. She realized his mother must be dead, so she walked out and got him, and brought him home. She called him Kunik and treated him as her own child, sharing her food with him, and the cub thrived and became very close to her."

"Aw, cute," Ray said. "An orphan bear."

Fraser smiled. "The village children loved the bear cub, so the old woman was never alone. Wherever she went her bear came as well, and most of the village children followed along. As Kunik got stronger, the children taught him to fish, and after a few months he was bringing plenty of salmon home for the old woman to eat. He grew almost to his full size, and she was very happy and called him her son, saying he was the best hunter in the village." Fraser raised a finger. "But after some time, the men of the village became envious and began talking among themselves."

"Oh yeah, here it comes," Ray said, scowling. "Bunch of blockheads. Knew it was too good to be true."

Fraser nodded. "The men knew how much the old woman loved her bear, and they knew the bear hadn't harmed anyone and that he played gently with the children, but they were angry and ashamed that an animal was a better hunter than they were and caught more salmon. They talked and talked, until they talked each other into doing something. 'He will be a danger to our families' one said. And another said 'he will take all the game and all the fish'—even though there was plenty for everyone."

"Man, those bozos," Ray said, incensed. "They're a mob, Fraser, psyching themselves up."

"Yes, Ray, I'm afraid they were. But one of the village boys overheard the men talking, making plans to kill the bear and roast him as a feast for the village. He ran to the old woman and told her, and she led her bear into the hills and told him he must run away. She wept and held him close, then told him to go far enough to be safe, but not so far that she could not find him again. So Kunik went away from the village and hid."

"Did she see him again?" Ray asked. The bear'd probably be okay, but he was worried for the old lady.

"Yes, indeed. After some days grieving, the old woman was going hungry as the men of the village had fallen out of the habit of giving her food—also, they were angry with her for not letting them kill the bear and feast on him. So the old woman traveled into the hills along the coast, and after some time, when she had despaired of ever seeing him again, she found Kunik, who was fat and strong and doing well for himself. They had a great reunion and the bear caught a seal for her, which she took back home after they had shared some of it. From then on she often saw him when she was out on her walks and the bear provided her with food. Eventually the villagers forgot that they had been frightened and envious and became proud of the old woman and Kunik, and told many stories about them both." He smiled at Ray. "And that's the story of the old woman and the bear."

Ray rolled his eyes. "Typical. They try to kill the bear, then the bastards want to horn in on all the glory. They didn't deserve her, Fraser. So that's a legend, right, 'cause it could've happened, in fact it probably did happen, ages ago."

"Just so, Ray," Fraser said. He sat up to reach for the lamp and turn it off. Ray watched him, then asked drowsily, "So what's the bear's name mean? Kunik?"

Fraser paused, looking down at him. "It's the word for an Inuit greeting. Some people translate it as 'kiss', but there's a different word for kissing on the mouth. A kunik is something else."

"Yeah?" Ray yawned. "So what do they do, shake hands?"

Fraser's mouth twitched. "No, Ray. Sit up and I'll show you."

Grumbling cheerfully, Ray hoisted himself up and Fraser leaned in. Ray felt his heart-rate pick up, his eyes widening, but it wasn't a kiss. Fraser put a hand on Ray's shoulder and pressed his nose beside Ray's and kind of nuzzled him, and for a moment they were sharing breath. Ray's eyes slid shut and all he was aware of was the press of warm skin, and Fraser's comforting smell. Then Fraser pulled back, biting his lip. His eyes were dilated in the dim light, and he turned away and shut off the lamp.

"Goodnight, Ray," he said into the darkness as they settled back down into their bedding. "Sleep tight."

" . . . yeah. Yeah, you too, Frase." After a minute, Ray rolled over and curled himself around Fraser's back, putting an arm around his waist. "Thanks for the stories."

Fraser's voice was husky. "You're very welcome, Ray."

 


	8. Good clean fun at the sweat lodge

 

 

They'd paused to check out a new campsite, and Fraser was poking about with a long stick like he sometimes did. Looking for what, Ray had no idea. To check there weren't any more holes in the ice, maybe, waiting to swallow Ray up if he wandered off in the night again? It didn't look like crevasse territory around here, but what did Ray know? Hell, maybe the Arctic Circle was chock full of land mines—there used to be a thing called the Cold War, after all.

Then in an eye-blink, Fraser disappeared, poof, and Ray was running, heart pounding, because oh my God it _was_ an ice-field and Fraser had fallen in another crevasse!

There was a hole in the snow, just big enough for a person, but it didn't lead down, instead it slanted down and in, like a coal chute. Fraser's head popped up, flushed and beaming. His face was framed by the snow, raised in a low mound behind whatever weird bolthole he'd stumbled on.

"Frase?" Ray asked, breathless. "You okay, buddy?"

"I most certainly am, Ray, and I'm pleased to say that our luck is in. Look what I've found!"

"Ah, I'm guessin' it's not a crevasse, right?"

"Good Lord no, Ray—this isn't an ice-field. I thought the shape of the structure looked artificial and so it was. It's an old smoke lodge built by hunters—Inuit hunters. They must have toted the wood quite some distance, and the bark. You can't make them out of compressed snow like an igloo; it's impossible to get the internal temperature high enough without melting the dome. But this is practically ready-made, and in reasonable repair, to boot."

"A . . . what? A smoking igloo? What, for breaking out a few Marlboros? Or no, wait, you mean for smoking fish, I guess. We got time to wait around for that?"

"Fish? No, Ray, it's _us_ who'll be smoked, Or rather, _not_ smoked, if I get the ventilation and timing right. It's quite a number of years since Jimmy Nuvuk showed me what to do. And we don't want to expire from carbon monoxide poisoning, after all!" His head vanished back into the interior darkness.

"Sure don't," Ray muttered. "You got _that_ right."

He started building the campfire, absently noting that stacking the right branches and twigs so they'd burn well was automatic for him now. He  added tinder from  a plastic bag he'd taken to carrying on him to keep it dry. Then he put a big pan of snow on the fire to melt, by which time Fraser had emerged, still looking so pleased with himself it was impossible not to grin back at him.

 

"So we're takin' a stopover?" Ray asked.

"Oh yes," Fraser said, standing by the fire and rubbing his hands together, positively gleeful. "We'll need tomorrow for the preparations and the ritual. It'll take much of the day."

"What ritual?" Ray tried not to look too weirded-out.

"Well we don't need to, you know, believe in the Inuit spirits, Ray, but the only way I know to prepare a smoke lodge is with the ritual, so I'll have to do it that way to make sure I get it right."

Fraser began erecting their tent and unpacking the basics, while Ray stirred lard into the big pan of water. Wisps of warm vapor rose from it, and he leaned over and breathed them in.

"Mmm, that's like a steam bath," Ray said, enjoying it. "A steam bath just for my face. Wish we had one out here, 'cause what with the no showers and the never getting undressed, not to mention the freezing fucking cold, I am damn near as dirty as I've ever been. I think I was dirtier when I was two and I fell in a mud puddle down by the lake one summer, but this here level of filth is my personal best as an adult."

Fraser went right on beaming goofily at him, so Ray added, annoyed, "You ain't smelling like no rose yourself, Frase." Truth be told he couldn't smell either himself or Fraser, beyond a general impression of animal and comfort and home. Part of that was this thing he had for Fraser, but part of it was the way your nose got used to smells, like his ears had that time he'd lived by the L and didn't notice the trains at all, after a while.

Fraser finished with the tent and joined him for dinner. "I should explain, Ray. It's a sweat lodge—the Inuit version of a sauna. So yes, you'll get something very like a steam bath, only with dry heat, if we can patch it up and get it to work."

"Really? You're not messin' with me?" Ray grinned and whacked Fraser on the arm. "Hot damn, no wonder you've been in a good mood. So it ain't an igloo. No, right, an igloo'd melt. But how come it's out here in the wilds?"

Fraser looked around. "This must be a favored summer camp, I think, so they collected the wood and built themselves a luxury item for when they were based here on longer hunting trips. It's our good fortune to chance on it when no one else needs it. As long as I observe the usual forms, I don't think the builders will object to us sharing their lodge."

That night it was even harder to sleep, with the promise of actually getting clean on the horizon. Ray kept scratching various itches, most of them probably imaginary, and he noticed Fraser was restless as well. And then Ray thought about how it had been the few times he'd had an actual sauna at a gym or the public baths. It wasn't as though people wore a hell of a lot in those things. All-male clubs, they generally wore nothing at all. Well, it'd be dark, and maybe he could take a cloth in, a sweat-rag, and kind of drape it strategic-like. Yeah, maybe he'd do that. Finally, he fell asleep.

The next day was busy. As well as the usual chores that kept all of them alive, they had to dig out the lodge and reinforce it. Ray scrambled in after Fraser had come out for a break—they hadn't enlarged it enough to both fit inside yet—and did his share of digging. Fraser packed snow over the sides and the roof, and cleared the central smoke-hole, and slowly, they uncovered the two sleeping ledges—"Well, not for sleeping, not like the structures inside an igloo," Fraser'd explained. "More for resting. For lounging."—and the central fire pit.

The walls and roof were thick slabs of bark supported by small tree-trunks, pressed down outside by packed snow. "Won't that melt?" Ray asked, poking at it.

"Yes, I imagine so," Fraser replied, "but we'll need it initially to make a heat-seal so the temperature can rise. Then we'll cover the wood with skins, and more snow, and that should keep it hot inside long enough so we can work up a good sweat. It's very invigorating—gets rid of the toxins."

"And you're sure you ain't gonna asfixerate us? I'm used to breathing oxygen, Fraser. I'd like to keep doing that."

"Yes, yes, don't fret, Ray. First the fire and a long, slow heating, with us covering any gaps that melt through and intermittently closing the smoke-hole, then we part-open the smoke-hole to let the smoke out, bank the fire's embers and take ourselves in with some blankets to lie on. A couple of hours and we’ll be ready for a rub-down in the snow."

"Hey, whoa. A what? I'm not havin' an ice-cold rub down, no way."

"Well, it's that or plunging into an icy lake afterward, and we don't have one near here. Not unless you want to hike a quarter mile to it. Really, Ray, the rub-down after is almost the best part. You'll tingle all over."

Ray forced a smile. Oh, that was just great. Naked rub-downs and tingling and Fraser all oblivious and glowing like one of those naturist health nuts. He was fucked.

The tent wasn't pitched far from the sweat lodge, so the plan was to strip off there and leave their clothes. They each had an old blanket to wrap up in so as to get in through the snow tunnel entrance, then they'd put those on the ledges and lie down on them, in the heat. Ray didn't think it'd be very hot, but even a little sweat should make him feel cleaner.

Fraser went first, insistent on checking the temperature and the smoke-hole before Ray squeezed inside, shivering at the icy touch of the snow tunnel walls. It was pretty damn hot in the lodge, with some daylight leaking in through the hole at the top. When he climbed up on the ledge, it got hotter. Fraser was stretched out on one elbow and Ray took care to just look at his face, then he spread out his blanket and laid himself down.

"Not bad!" Fraser said. "A little smoky but we should be perfectly safe with this level of ventilation." He stretched up and felt around outside the smoke-hole, pulling a skin he'd left outside a bit further across. Ray swallowed and turned over to lie on his front. He wondered if his ass was turning pink. It felt like it was; it was pretty damn hot inside the lodge.

Sweat prickled along his spine and ran down his sides and from his hair, down his neck and his face. The air was hot and dry in his lungs, and the blanket smelled like a hot, smoky animal. Ray tried pushing himself up to breathe easier, but it was hotter up by the roof, and the lodge was real small, just for one or two hunters. Fraser climbed down and banked the embers some more. He looked up at Ray.

"If it gets too much, come down here in the lowest part to cool off a little," he said. Ray was beyond caring about being naked; he felt like he was melting and he sure as shit wasn't wearing no blanket in this heat. He crouched down as far as he could get from the covered fire, alongside Fraser. Fraser was right—despite the fire, it was cooler down here.

"Intense, huh?"

"It certainly is, Ray."

"So what's with this ritual, anyway?"

"Oh, nothing much. I just burned some herbs in the fire when I lit it and asked some of the spirits to help us with the sweat. Oh, and there's this." He reached into an alcove by the door tunnel and grabbed a twiggy conifer branch—green wood, not dry twigs. Then he started whacking himself across the shoulders with it.

"What the fuck?" Ray yelled, falling back on his ass in the snow. "This some kinky shit, Fraser?"

Fraser paused, staring at him in puzzlement. "No indeed, Ray. It stimulates the skin and helps with cleansing." He held out the branch. "Here, try it."

Ray took the thing nervously, and tapped it against his leg. "Harder," Fraser said. "You want to make the skin nicely pink."

"My skin's already goddamn pink, Frase. It's most likely red as a lobster, in fact. It's the Polish genes—we color up real fast."

"Yes, I had noticed," Fraser said. Ray snuck a look at him—he was grinning. Fraser took the branch off him. "It's called a flail," he said. "Let me. I won't hurt you, Ray."

"Well, okay, but you be gentle with me Frase."

"Always," Fraser said, and Jesus fucking Christ, Ray thought, was that flirting? That was definitely flirting.

It was so damn hard to tell what was going on, with the naked pinkness and the sweating and being whacked with the flail-thing—and Ray had to admit, when Fraser did it it  _did_  feel good, real good. He hit Ray just hard enough to almost-sting, but not so hard that it hurt. Ray took a turn, whopping Fraser across his back and his ass. Damn, he had a nice ass. Then they lay down again, and Ray might have drowsed a bit in the heat, dreaming about Fraser's ass, and his cock. He was half-hard, but so was Fraser, so that was okay.

Fraser fiddled with the smoke-hole from time to time, and stoked the fire if he thought they needed more heat, and eventually, he took Ray by his slippery shoulder and pushed at him and made him crawl out of the hot, delicious fug of the lodge, out where the shock of the cold had them yelling and whooping and laughing, snowball-fighting and rubbing snow on themselves and damn it, Fraser'd been right, this  _was_  the best part. Ray'd never felt so alive in his whole fucking life.

They fell back into their tent, damp and exhilarated, taking turns to rub down with a cloth Fraser had left by the door. Ray was comfortable being naked, now, his skin zinging with heat and cold and pumping blood, and it wasn't just his pores open, he felt open all over. Open all the way through.

He flopped back on the bedding, laughing and relaxed. "That was greatness, Frase. That was the  _best_."

Fraser lounged beside him, up on one elbow. "We'll have to get inside the sleeping bags soon, Ray, or we'll start getting chilled."

"Yeah, I know." Ray looked up at Fraser. "Just a little longer. I feel all loose." He snorted. "I don't mean  _loose_  loose, y'know."

Fraser smiled down at him. "Yes, I know, Ray." Then Fraser was bending over him. "But  _I_  do.  _Very_  loose."

Fraser was kissing him. Kissing. On the lips. With tongue. Ray made a startled noise, then an appreciative one, and then he was kissing back, hungrily, as Fraser rolled onto him, onto Ray's naked, clean,  _tingly_  body and he was hard just like that, hard so fast he'd've gotten dizzy if he hadn't been lying flat on his back already.

Fraser made a sound not unlike a growl and  _God_  that was hot. He was hard, too, kissing and sucking at Ray's neck, his cock pressed against Ray's thigh as he slid down.

"Yeah," Ray gasped. "Oh my freakin' God, Frase,  _yeah, please_  . . . "

Fraser sucked his nipples and licked across Ray's chest. It occurred to Ray that sex—unlike dog-sledding and wilderness survival—was an area in which he had a certain amount of expertise, so he hauled Fraser up and flipped them over, pressing Fraser back in turn and kissing him some more, deep sucking kisses, while his hips thrust against Fraser all by themselves, sliding their cocks together until he thought he'd come right there, just from that.

It made Fraser tip his head back and moan, and that made Ray bite Fraser's throat, and stick his tongue in Fraser's ear, and then Fraser was muttering  _please please let me Ray I have to_  and working his way down Ray's body to mouth his cock and Ray might've made a high-pitched noise as Fraser pinned his hips and sucked him in, licking him like Ray's cock was the best ice-cream cone in the world.

Fraser was good at it, Ray thought, dazed, after he'd come. But then Fraser was good with his mouth and his tongue in general, so he shouldn't be surprised. "I ain't done that for a while, Frase, but I wanna try . . . ," he whispered, and Fraser bit his lip and nodded, his eyes dark.

Ray got in a few good licks while Fraser made sexy choked-off groans, and then he fitted as much of Fraser's cock in his mouth as he could, his hand fisting the base of Fraser's shaft. He liked the weight and the taste of Fraser's cock, moving his mouth up and down some, trying to watch his teeth 'cause he remembered what a passion-killer that was when you were on the receiving end. Fraser pushed feebly at his shoulder after a while but Ray ignored him, and then Fraser cried out and arched, and Ray half choked, and swallowed manfully, even though, _yecch_. Then he crawled back up and bundled them both into the bags, Fraser all noodly and pliant.

Ray was the big spoon, and they dozed, but it was still the Arctic outside the tent, so after a while they got up and got dressed in all their layers again and snuggled back down. It was the best night's sleep Ray'd had on the whole trip, and Fraser snored, cute little whiffling snores whenever Ray surfaced from dreams. And jeez, Ray thought despairingly, wasn't that just the goddamn kicker? He thought Fraser's snores were  _cute_. He had it bad.

They woke again before dawn, and kissed, and slid their hands down into the layers of long johns and sweatpants, and stroked each other off. "Tell me when you're going to come," Fraser whispered, and Jesus, Ray almost came right then, hearing him say that.

A few more strokes and he was real close. "Yeah, Frase, I'm gonna–" and Fraser wriggled down in the warm, smelly nest of the bags and pulled down his pants, sucking him hard, once, twice, and bam, that was all she wrote.

Ray jerked Fraser off in the dark, kissing him and whispering in his ear until Fraser shuddered and pushed hard into his hand. Ray caught the come as best he could, and used a rag to clean his hand. No easy way to do laundry, out here, apart from the small stuff.

They lay together after, awake and relaxed, curled up. "How long've you wanted to, Frase?" Ray asked. "Or was it just 'cause of the naked sweating and all that?"

"The naked sweating certainly put the seal on it, Ray, but no, I've wanted you a long time. You must know that, surely?"

"Knew you liked me. Knew we were buddies. Wasn't sure if you wanted me like I wanted you." Fraser made a questioning noise and Ray held him tighter. "Yeah, been a long time for me, too."

They kissed for a while, slow and languid, rubbing together like cats. Ray tucked himself in under Fraser's chin. "So we're idiots, right? Dumb as planks."

"That seems to sum it up, Ray, yes. In our defence, though, our partnership could be regarded as a long, slow courtship. I think we both needed to get to know each other. We'd been through a lot, with . . ." Fraser gestured.

Ray nodded against Fraser's chest. Victoria. Stella. He didn't want to say the names either.

"But Frase, what you said about being partners like your dad and Buck Frobisher? Not that I'm implying, God,  _anything_ , 'cause that hurts my brain even to imagine." Ray shuddered at the thought of anyone's dad doing anything, let alone Buck Frobisher doing . . .  _no_ ,  _Christ no_. He shook his head and tried again. "You said something about being far apart and still being partners. An' then, whammo, we're off on this quest, and we're not far apart at all, in fact we're sharin' a tent, and then a sleeping bag, and then a naked sweat lodge. Well, you can see, Frase, how I'm kind of confused here?"

"Understandable, Ray, and entirely my fault. I do apologise. I wanted . . . but I didn't think you'd want. So I told myself we could just be friends, even far apart. Arrant nonsense, I know, and I couldn't bear to go through with it so I inveigled Buck into lending us the team and the sled, and . . . I think I was hoping." He bent and kissed Ray again. "Hoping against hope, perhaps, and I never imagined . . ."

"Yeah, well," Ray said when they came up for air again. "You imagine away all you want, Frase. 'cause I ain't goin' nowhere. Partners, right? Not long distance, not phone calls and letters, 'cause I'm no good at that shit. I'm staying."

"But your job, Ray. Because I don't have one any more, in Chicago. The Inspector's reassigning me up here."

"Yeah, I know." Ray traced Fraser's face with his fingers. "You were miserable down there, anyway. Guess I'm gonna have to make my peace with the snow, Fraser. You think the Canadians'll let me stay? Must be something I can do here. I'm good with cars."

"You'd do that for me?" Fraser's voice was hoarse. "Live up here?"

"Pretty much already have. Tell you the truth, I'm not sure I can handle all that civilization back in Inuvik. The people! The noise!"

Fraser chuckled. "We can always come back here and have a nice quiet sweat bath, if it gets too much. I hear it's very invigorating."

"Sure invigorated  _me_ , Fraser," Ray said, pushing Fraser back on the bed and pulling up his shirts and sweaters. "Invigorated me so much I'm gonna have to share some of that invigoration with you again. Jesus Christ, you make me feel like I'm still seventeen, only without the dumb mouthiness and the bad hair. "

"Oh I don't know," Fraser gasped, as Ray licked his nipples. "You're still pretty mouthy, Ray."

"Bet your goddamn ass I am, and speaking of asses, I just thought of another use for all those tons of fat we been luggin' about."

"I like how your mind works, Ray," Fraser said, breathless as Ray got his lips around the head of Fraser's cock. "Ohh, and your mouth, I like how . . .  _love_  how, Ray, oh, Ray, I love . . ."

 _Yeah,_  Ray thought, as he took Fraser in and made him moan and thrash.  _Right back at you, Fraser. Right back at you._

 


	9. Everybody gets some, even wolves

 

 _What the fuck?_ Ray jerked awake, struggling in the sleeping bag under heavy furs, his legs tangled with Fraser's.

Beside him, Fraser moved, a dark shape in the blackness, felt more than seen. "Ray? Are you all right?"

"What’s going on out there, Frase? Sounds like World War III's broken loose." The night was filled with howling and yipping, some of the noise from nearby and some from further away. The howling lifted the hairs on the back of Ray’s neck and gave him goose-flesh.

Fraser listened briefly. "Nothing to worry about, Ray. The dogs are unsettled of course, but they're well able to fend for themselves. Interesting. I hadn’t thought we’d encounter any this far south, but it was always a possibility. They may be heading northwest, after the caribou herd." He turned on the lamp and began pulling on his outerwear. "Come on, Ray, let’s see if we can catch a glimpse. Also I want a word with Diefenbaker—he’s being highly irresponsible."

"See what?" Ray asked, scrambling to find his jacket and boots, still freaked out by the ululating howls that seemed to drill right through to some primitive prey-animal part of his brain.

He crawled out of the tent after Fraser, shivering from the double assault of icy air and freaky howling. Peering about, Ray saw Dief's form pale against a black swathe of forest. His head was arched back in a long howl, echoed many times over from where the sled-dogs were picketed.

"Oh for goodness' sake, Diefenbaker," Fraser called, annoyed. "You had to pick _tonight_ to advertise your presence?" Dief stopped howling and turned to look at Fraser, not seeming at all chastened. He huffed, then turned his back on Fraser pointedly, sitting and staring intently into the trees.

Fraser spluttered. "I'll thank you not to use crude language like 'getting some', or to make salacious comments about me and Ray. Our behavior in the privacy of our tent is none of your business. Nor is it your 'turn'. The very idea!"

Dief snorted, then stood, quivering, nose raised to catch the breeze. He barked sharply.

"Diefenbaker, really. You can't travel with them so don't go leading some unsuspecting female astray." Diefenbaker whined. "Yes, I realize fresh blood's good for the pack, but you'd be an entirely absentee father, and having experienced that as a . . . as a cub, I can't recommend it."

Dief put back his head and howled again, the sound running like ice-water down Ray's spine. He shuddered and pulled his coat tighter around him. His eyes were dark-adapted by now and he could see some of the closer trees, shadowy trunks against the deeper black of the forest thickets.

"Well, you've done it now," Fraser said. "You'd better be back here before we break camp in the morning, or you'll be in serious trouble. Think of Ray, if not of me, Dief. He needs you to look out for him, not to be gallivanting across half the Territories chasing a romantic infatuation. And no, I don't care how good she smells."

Dief whined, and Fraser turned to Ray. "He's incorrigible, I'm afraid, but he promises to be back at dawn."

Ray barely heard him, staring into the black shadows between the trees where he was sure he'd seen something move. Several somethings. Dief pranced and bowed down, his front legs outstretched. He yipped playfully. A dark gray shadow detached itself from the forest and loped up to Dief. Another wolf.

Ray shone his flashlight at the forest, then took a step back. He was too far away for the beam to light up the trees, but several twinned points of light reflected back from the blackness. Eyes. A wolf pack.

Ray saw that Dief and the strange wolf were scenting each other, Dief wriggling and whining. He suddenly rolled onto his back, paws up, offering his throat. The gray wolf sniffed him thoroughly, then turned and ran back into the trees. Dief paused, looked back at Ray and Fraser and whined again, then followed her.

"So much for man's best friend," Fraser said huffily. " _What_ a performance."

The howling had stopped and the sled-dogs were settling down again. "Heh." Ray elbowed Fraser's padded side, grinning. "Dief's got a girlfriend."

"Oh, don't _you_ encourage him as well. He's quite willful enough as it is."

"Aw, c'mon, Fraser. It's kind of cute. Long as he comes back again, that is."

They ducked down and crawled back into the tent, stripping off layers of jackets, coats and boots in their usual routine. Ray wriggled into the joined-together bags, which were still warm under the mound of furs and blankets. He shivered luxuriously. "Dief _is_ gonna come back, isn't he, Frase? This ain't the call of the wild or somethin'?"

"Don't worry; he'll be back. I'd have lost him years ago if he were inclined to run off with any pack with which we crossed paths. He may have poor taste in snack foods and an irresponsible attitude to fathering progeny, but he's loyal."

Fraser slid in beside Ray, and they settled down side by side, still a little uncertain with each other, even after the sweat lodge.

"Hey, c'mere," Ray said finally, turning to face Fraser. "Dief being in the mating mood; it's giving me ideas." He pulled Fraser in and traced his face with one hand. Fraser turned his head and brushed Ray's fingers with his lips, then surged up to kiss the breath out of him.

"Christ, Frase, yeah . . . " Ray gasped, as Fraser rolled him onto his back, nosing up his neck, licking and biting as their hands tangled in sweatpants and undershirts, frantically seeking flesh. "Drive me . . . crazy," Ray moaned, pushing up into Fraser's hand where it cupped his rapidly hardening cock through his pants.

Fraser growled and man that was hot, like _incendiary_. Ray whined, feeling like Dief with the she-wolf, which was hot too, but also weird, so he let Fraser's hands and mouth distract him.

Fraser was being real distracting. He had their pants pushed down now and their shirts pushed up, and he'd fitted himself in between Ray's legs, moving against Ray so their cocks slid together. Ray planted his feet and pushed up, because it felt good, _amazing,_ and then Fraser got a hand down in between them, muttering "Ray, let me, yes, oh yes," as he closed it around both their cocks.

Ray bucked upward. He got his hands on Fraser's ass and squeezed, getting his mouth on Fraser's jaw and neck even as Fraser curled over him muttering incoherent, broken sounds against Ray's throat.

They strained together, mouths meeting in desperate, clumsy kisses, breaking off to gasp for breath. Ray was so turned on he felt like he'd explode, writhing under Fraser as Fraser rode him hard and jerked them both off.

Then he _was_ exploding, pleasure rushing through him as his cock spurted in Fraser's hand, and Fraser grunted, losing his rhythm as he thrust against Ray, and came.

Fraser was heavy on him after as they lay there, panting. "Oh dear," he said, once they'd caught their breath. "Ray, I wonder if you could find a cloth nearby? I think if we don't move too much and I keep my hand where it is, we can contain the . . . the spillage."

Ray grinned. "That ain't an oil slick, Fraser. That's a natural bodily function."

"Yes, well," Fraser said. "A) I was raised by librarians, and B) it’s a natural bodily function we can't afford to have staining the inside of the sleeping bags, so if you'd try and locate something? I believe there's a handkerchief on my side of the . . . ah, very good. Thank you, Ray."

Fraser cleaned them both up and set the rag aside to be washed the next day. The air in the tent had warmed a little from their exertions but it was still chilly, so they snuggled down in each other's arms under the furs, clothes set back to rights.

Ray pushed his face into Fraser's neck and nuzzled him. "How are you so hot, Frase?" he whispered. "You make me crazy with wanting you."

" _Ray,_ " Fraser said, his voice hoarse. His hands cupped Ray's face and they were kissing, long deep kisses with lots of tongue, wet and a little desperate even though they'd just taken the edge off. Ray thought he might be able to come again in a while, just from kissing Fraser. He sure planned to try.

"Gonna kiss you 'til you get hard for me again, Frase," He whispered into Fraser's mouth. "Kiss you 'til you can't help yourself, 'til you roll me over and fuck me. Want you to fuck me, Frase. Want you inside me."

"Oh sweet Christ," Fraser moaned, attacking Ray's mouth with renewed vigor. " _Yes_ . . . want to . . . want you . . ."

Then there were just moans, and, later, a certain amount of grunting and groaning, when it got really good again after Ray'd sucked Fraser back to hardness. Fraser made Ray put an old t-shirt under him this time to catch the mess, so Ray let himself go, one hand jerking himself and the other arm braced against Fraser's frantic thrusts.

Fraser'd been careful and slow at first, opening him up—the lard coming in handy just as Ray'd suggested—before pushing in, trembling with need and self-restraint.

" 'm okay, Frase. C'mon, do me, let me have it." Ray felt like he was in his own porn movie, which was all kinds of ridiculous, but Dief was off in the wilds with his mate and Fraser _really_ liked the dirty talk, so Ray let his mouth run off with all the corny lines he could think of, and it drove Fraser crazy, blew him away until he was fucking Ray hard and deep, until Ray lost his words and there was nothing but Fraser in him and over him, there in the warm, sweaty, animal-smelling dark.

In the morning, Ray was definitely walking funny. Fraser was full of apologies and solicitude, which was hilarious. Dief showed up for breakfast looking very self-satisfied and yipped at them snottily, and Fraser just flushed and didn't call him on it.

Ray rode the sled a lot that day. He hardly felt cold at all.

 


	10. Fraser makes like Humpty Dumpty

 

 

Ray wasn't surprised when it all turned to custard. Pissed, freaked out and terrified for Fraser, but not surprised.

The universe couldn't just leave him and Fraser alone and let them be happy, could it? Getting wonderfully clean and then getting it on with Fraser—and all the nights in their sleeping bag after, touching and kissing and sucking and putting that goddamn fat to very pleasurable use—was too much of a poke in the eye to some vengeful old luck god.

His thoughts circled round and around like horses stampeding inside a corral. They weren't making much sense, and it was pretty fucking stupid to be banging on about how unfair all this was, right when Fraser and him were finally an item, but it was easier than facing facts, 'cause the facts were . . . the facts were . . .

Fraser wasn't waking up. He'd lost a lot of blood, and taken at least one bang to the head. Ray didn't think the head injuries were too bad, and if that was all, Fraser might have come right in a few hours and just been, like, sick and feeling shitty with concussion. Ray'd had concussions and they were no picnic, but you got through them, and Fraser pushed through everything so he'd have pushed through any sickness or dizziness.

He'd for sure at least have been able to tell Ray what to do. Because Christ, someone needed to—Ray didn't have a fucking clue up here in the goddamn frozen wasteland that had swallowed up Franklin and his two boatloads of men without so much as breaking wind. Same way it was gonna swallow Ray and Fraser and the dogs. Well, maybe not Dief, 'cause he could live off the land, but the sled-dogs weren't wild; they were used to having fat and kibble doled out, and . . . he wasn't crying, he  _wasn't_. It was just the thought of the poor dogs starving to death, that was all. Ray was a sucker for animals—go ask Turtle.

Fraser was lying there in the bed Ray'd made up for him in their tent, wrapped up as warm as Ray could manage, all pale and still. Ray was curled up with Fraser, trying to keep him warm. You had to keep people warm when they were in shock, anyone knew that, and he figured Fraser had to be in shock. There'd been so much blood.

Ray'd been in fine spirits because the weather was great – warm and sunny, and he'd had a good night's sleep and a blowjob, so who wouldn't be on top of the world? Fraser didn't seem quite as happy about the bright sunlight, saying it would be harder to find enough snow for the rest of the journey back if temperatures remained high. Whatever—Fraser was a worrywart and Ray'd been in too good a mood to care. He figured that was what caused it, though, as they traveled along a high ledge, up where the snow was thicker, a scree slope dropping sharply away to the left and a rock face to the right. Snow-melt, undercutting what seemed like a solid ridge of snow, and Fraser just a little closer to the edge, skirting the sled. Putting himself in between Ray and danger, like always. 

 

One second Fraser was there, sliding forward on his skis while Ray yammered on about which were better, mittens or gloves or some crap, and then there was a crack and a rumble, and with a startled yell, Fraser was gone. The snow ledge had broken off and fallen, taking him with it in a mini-avalanche of snow and rocks, tumbling to hell and gone down the scree slope. Fraser hadn't fallen far, but he'd hit a couple of big boulders on his way down before lodging up against one of them. When Ray got to him using a length of rope and the sled as an anchor, Fraser was out cold from the bang on his head, and his leg, Christ, his leg. Mid-way between his knee and ankle there was a long jagged wound, the bones all broken and poking through. Blood everywhere, until Ray got a tourniquet and then a pressure bandage on it, straightening Fraser's leg as best he could even though it made a wet crunching noise that made Ray turn away and vomit up the remains of his breakfast into the rocks. He still felt sick, remembering that noise.

They said you couldn't tell, that blood always looked like a lot more than it was when it was splashed around. Well, this sure looked like a lot, and Ray was damn sure it was more than Fraser could spare, 'cause he was pale and his pulse was fast and kind of faint, and he wasn't waking the fuck up. So they were camped up on the ledge, well back from the slope and the treacherous rim of snow that had caused the disaster. And Ray'd done as much first aid as he could with Fraser, who had bruises and cuts on his face and hands, but nothing that needed stitches. It was the leg. The bandages were soaked through, although Ray thought the bleeding had slowed down some, but what did he know?

Seriously, what the fuck did he know about  _any_  of this shit? Fraser was the wilderness expert. Fraser could survive out here even without the sled or the dogs or Ray or even Dief. He'd eat lichen and knock grouses on the head and be dogged and skillful and Fraserish, and make a fire with dried moss and a shiny rock, and tell himself Inuit stories and, and . . . do all that self-sufficient shit Ray had not one fucking clue about.

But he had to.

He had to do  _something_ , or else Fraser would die out here, and that didn't bear thinking about. Ray wasn't going to think about it, because Fraser  _couldn't_  die. Ray wasn't having it, fuck, no. Not happening.

The dogs were okay, and the sled too, thank Christ. They hadn't gone over the edge as well, so Ray would put Fraser on the sled and he'd steer it. Too slow to use the spare skis—Fraser's had snapped like twigs and probably broke his damn leg into the bargain. No, Ray would ride. It'd tire the dogs out more but they weren't in this for the long haul any more, trying to pace the dogs and take it steady. This was all or nothing—Inuvik or bust.

At least Ray knew how to feed the dogs and Dief and himself, and he'd do that, as soon as his stomach stopped knotting up with fear. He'd find a way back on the snow that was left, and Fraser wouldn't die, and maybe he'd even wake up and tell Ray what to do, along the way. Maybe he'd say: "Good work, Ray. You did well." Maybe.

They didn't have any sort of radio or satellite phone. It'd all been so rushed, after Muldoon got carted off by the Mounties. They only had what Buck Frobisher had given them, and old Buck wasn't one for newfangled nonsense like technology, no siree, no cutting edge stuff for Buck. Ray'd read about a new company that claimed their satellite phone system covered the poles, but Buck and Fraser were traditionalists. Ray felt like punching Buck Frobisher in his dumb old face, because he couldn't be mad with Fraser and he really,  _really_  wanted to punch somebody's lights out.

Instead, he turned his face into the blankets Fraser was wrapped in and let the tears come, hot and salty, his throat aching. Just for now. He'd get it together real soon.

After a while, Ray levered himself up, wiped his face and blew his nose. He kissed Fraser's too-cold banged-up lips and checked his breathing, which still misted up Ray's eye-glasses, thank fucking Christ.

Ray straightened suddenly. How was he going to find the way back? He looked in Fraser's pack and pulled out the map, but the more he peered at it, the less sure he was about where they were, exactly. Fraser didn't write on the map, just Ray. He'd been drawing their trip on it but the last few nights he'd been too busy fucking and sucking and kissing—and how could he have been such a useless goddamn idiot? He might've  _known_  the universe was hunkered down, waiting with cold calculation to get them. He should never have let his damn guard down. So now there were a bunch of days where he hadn't tracked their route on the map and he was royally fucked, and so was Fraser, and they were going to die out here and Fraser would die first but Ray wasn't gonna eat him, fuck no. If Fraser died Ray was gonna eat the old pistol Buck had loaned him, the one he hadn't shot the grouse with. If Fraser died Ray couldn't see any point carrying on. Dief'd be okay and the dogs'd have to take their chances. Just another failed expedition and they'd been doomed right from the start, they'd been crazy to even–

Ray slapped himself hard across the side of the face because that was what you did with people who were panicking, and he was sure as hell panicking. Shut up, shut up and  _think_. Fraser didn't draw on the map but he kept notes. In his journal. Ray scrabbled frantically in Fraser's pack and got hold of the journal, flicking through the pages with trembling hands. Please God, please let him have . . . let him have . . .  _there_. Every night, their latitude and longitude. Ray pored over the map, which was one of those super detailed topical ones. It was so detailed it took him a while to figure out all the lines crisscrossing it, but then he got it and drew an x-marks-the-spot, and that was last night's camp. They'd only been underway for an hour when Fraser fell, and Fraser had told him the sled could do about four miles an hour in good weather, and they'd been headed due west, going by the sun. Huh, maybe Ray  _had_  learned a few things just from being around Fraser, without realizing it.

Ray put his finger on the map, and made another mark. They were  _here_.

He stared at the map. That white line zigzagging up to Inuvik—that was the Dempster Highway. If he could find snow for the sled without having to detour, and if he managed not to join Fraser in falling off a fucking cliff, he figured it was about six hours sledding from here to the closest point, where the highway zagged east about 50 miles south of Inuvik. It was still early, only mid-morning even though it felt like a lifetime of bad luck and terror since he'd woken—they could be at the road near dusk. He wasn't going to think about how little traffic there was on that road, especially around twilight when any sensible driver had stopped off for a plate of the special and some pie back in Fort McPherson, or maybe at Tsiigehtchic, if they knew someone there. Ray remembered Fraser patiently repeating the pronunciation. "Tsiigehtchic, Ray—it sounds like sig-a-chick."

He shook his head sharply. No, he wasn't going to think about him and Fraser chatting cozily about places on the map in their lamp-lit tent. He wasn't going to think about how hard it was going to be to flag down a car or a truck with the light fading fast. It was a gravel road, snow-covered in this season, so vehicles wouldn't be moving too fast. No point worrying about all that—he was just going to get them there. And he was on a deadline, 'cause he didn’t think Fraser would make it through a day and a night and another day, not looking like he did, and still bleeding from his leg.

Ray crawled out of the tent and got the sled and the dogs all hooked up, then he drank water from his canteen and made himself eat some dried meat with fat. He carried Fraser out and got him safely settled on the sled, padded and covered up as well as Ray could manage with both sleeping bags, and furs and skins, and all roped in. He checked Fraser a final time and kissed him again—still breathing—and whistled to Dief, who'd helped him haul Fraser back up the scree slope and had been whining, pushing his nose into Ray's hand and trying to lick Fraser's face, ever since. Then Ray got onto the back of the sled and mushed the dogs into action.

Looking back later, he didn't remember much detail about that journey. He was in a weird state, all hyped up about steering the sled, and the snow cover, and not falling off mountains, but also kind of on auto-pilot, instincts kicking in that he didn't even know he had, after so many weeks traveling with Fraser. He stopped them every half-hour or so to pull out Fraser's compass and recheck the map, marking where he thought they were. A longer break for the dogs every couple hours, with food and water to keep them going while Ray forced down some rations himself and checked Fraser anxiously. Still breathing, but Christ, he was pale. Ray'd been raised Catholic and he found himself saying a Hail Mary as he checked Fraser's pulse—rapid, thready—and held his cool, immobile hand. He left out the bit about  _now and at_   _the hour of our death_.

He wrapped Fraser back up and they were off again, Ray still muttering under his breath,  _Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners._ If they'd ever needed a Hail Mary, now was the time.

The shadows got longer as the afternoon crept by, but the weather held and Ray thought they were pretty much on schedule. They damn well better be, 'cause Fraser hadn't moved or woken up, not even slightly, and Ray knew you couldn't give unconscious people food or drink, so Fraser was in shock and bleeding and bound to be getting dehydrated as well by now, even though he'd drunk a couple of mugs of tea at breakfast, as usual.

They were out of the foothills by now, sledding across flat ground and more of those tarn things, everything covered up with snow, thank fuck. The road would be frozen and snowy as well, and Fraser had said that the river crossing at the Mackenzie was still an ice road, the river not thawed yet with winter gripping the land for longer this year, the ferry up in dry dock.

They reached the highway as the light began to fail, the sky deep blue fading to black. Ray prayed for a car or a truck, but he needed a little time. He knew what it was like to be barreling along a straight road. You were in motion and it was hard to change plans and slow down or stop, but then, as long as they were seen, surely no one would go right past and leave them here? Ray needed to make sure they were seen.

There was no wood anywhere around, just the road and the snow stretching away on all sides. Ray cursed himself for a dumb-ass because they'd  _passed_  a few isolated patches of scrub and bare trees; he could've gathered some wood, although it was bound to be wet and it probably wouldn't have burned well, or lasted very long. He needed to burn  _something_ , so a driver would see the fire as they approached, and know to slow down. Not the skins or the bedding—Fraser was too damn pale and cold as it was. Not the tent, in case no one came, but if . . . well, they'd be fucked, that was all, and he wasn't gonna think about it. But not the tent. He wanted Fraser inside, where it was warmer.

Ray mulled it over as he put up the tent and got Fraser in there, Dief in with him to warm Fraser up a bit. Dief whimpered and curled up along Fraser's good side, like he knew about the broken leg. Well, of course he did, what with the dried blood. Then Ray went through the familiar motions of lighting the camping gas stove—Buck's one concession to modernity—and melting snow in the huge pan, adding in fat, then the kibble, and feeding the dogs. They'd done well, and he told them so, and he'd got them all to the road so someone would find them now, even if it wasn't in time for . . . No. No thinking about that. Dief came out for his bowl of fat-and-kibble, then he ducked back inside again with Fraser.

Ray sat there wiping out the big pan with a cloth like he always did, staring at the faint blur of the road stretching away. He needed a bunch of those barbecue firelighters, but of course Fraser and Buck would never stoop to goddamn cheating. Ray knew for a fact Fraser preferred a flint and tinder even to matches, let alone a Bic lighter. What he wouldn't give for a can of gas or kerosene now, or engine oil . . . wait. He  _had_  oil, kind of. He had  _fat_. The trip was over, kaput, so there was no point saving it, now he'd fed the dogs.

Ray lit the gas stove again and hauled out all the remaining lard, half-filling the big aluminum pan and keeping the rest aside for top-ups. He got some rope—blessing Buck Frobisher for once because it was old-fashioned hemp rope, not plastic or whatever shit modern ropes were made of. He soaked it in the fat which was nearly all melted. Then he cobbled together a frame from some wire to hold the rope up and raise it well above the top of the pan. He turned off the stove and moved the pan to the edge of the road, said another Hail Mary and lit the top of the rope. The night was still and almost windless, but even so, it spluttered and took a while to catch, and it burned right down so he had to adjust the wire support, but then, just like a giant oil lamp, the flame caught and steadied. It burned with black smoke and stank, and it wasn't anywhere near bright enough, really, but out here with the dusk with the land so flat and empty, Ray reckoned a driver might see it. Anyway, he'd be here, listening for the sound of an engine, and when he heard one he'd push the wick flat so the whole damn pan caught fire. A driver'd find it hard to miss  _that_. If there were any drivers. But there had to be.

That was the worst part. An endless round of checking Fraser obsessively, Dief's worried eyes fixed on him, glistening dark in the lamp-light, then back outside, terrified he'd miss the only truck on the road that night. Adding a little more lard if the flame was faltering, and huddling there, shivering in a sleeping bag by his makeshift emergency lamp, trying not to think how completely unlikely it was, as dusk turned to full dark, that any vehicles would be out on a dangerous, isolated snow road way the fuck north of the Arctic Circle, in the middle of the night.

He felt the truck before he heard it. Felt a vibration in the ground underneath him. Then he heard the engine, still a long way off, and the emptiness played tricks on his ears so he couldn't figure out which direction it was coming from. Then the lights, just a faint flicker at first as they rose and fell with dips in the road. From the south, from Fort McPherson or Tsiigehtchic, heading up to Inuvik. Ray tipped the wick over to set the pan burning and the flame snuffed out, drowned. In the pitch dark he fumbled for his lighter, cursing, and finally got it out and lit the lard up, watching it catch and burn, singeing his gloves, like he gave a fuck.

The engine noise was louder now, and Ray'd been so still for so long it seemed to be rushing at him, fast, Christ, too fast. There was no way the driver would see him and his dumb pan of fat. A blink of an eye and they'd be past and gone, leaving him and Fraser to the cold and the night and the dark, and that'd be it. Kaput. Ray almost threw himself under the wheels as it whooshed past spraying him with wet, dirty snow, but it wouldn't have stopped the damn thing and he couldn't leave Dief and Fraser and the dogs, not out here.

Then he heard the engine shift and the brakes squealed, the noise of the truck changing, fading to a dull rumble, idling. And out of the darkness, a voice. "Hey up, anyone there? Need some help?"

His name was Gordon, and he had a wife in Inuvik waiting with his dinner, and a beard and a CB radio. He let Ray babble out his story, and kindly didn't remark on how Ray's cheeks were wet. He even let Ray hug him, just before Ray and Dief and Fraser were loaded onto the rescue helicopter headed for the hospital at Fort McPherson, and promised to take the dog team and sled through to Inuvik where the RCMP would look after them and let Buck Frobisher know what had happened.

The doctors at Fort McPherson wouldn't let Ray stay with Fraser, saying Ray needed to be treated as well and then knocking him out sneaky-like with some sort of roofies. So he didn't know until the next day that Fraser'd been in surgery for hours, and that they'd saved his leg, and his life, but he still hadn't woken up.

"He's critical but stable, Mr. Kowalski," the doctor said, looking too young to be any more than a goddamn medical student, but apparently he was some hotshot surgeon who was nuts about dog-sledding, so they were lucky. Fraser was lucky. If he ever woke the fuck up. "He's been through a great deal," said the doctor. "He needs time to heal. Can I ask if you're a relative?"

"We’re partners," Ray said blankly, suddenly realizing he had no rights at all. Not to be told anything, not to decide anything. But the doctor just nodded, because this was Canada. "There's a sister," Ray blurted, suddenly remembering, and then there were calls to make, and Christ, how had he forgotten Maggie needed to know, and Ray Vecchio? The Mounties eventually tracked Maggie down, but she was out on some trip hunting poachers, so they said they'd have her call the hospital when she checked in, in a few days.

Ray got back on the phone and finally got through to Vecchio at the precinct, and then he had Vecchio yelling at him for letting Fraser fall off a goddamn cliff—and how was that Ray's fault, huh? Then after he got Vecchio calmed down the guy started some bullshit story about bowling and Florida, as though Ray gave a flying fuck. Finally, Ray got Vecchio to put Stella on the line, and at least Stell asked how he was doing, and was he okay. It made him choke up, so he cut the call short, and there was nothing they could do, anyway, not all the way down in Chicago.

The dog-loving doctor had a kennel for Dief out in back of the hospital. Dief was miserable away from Fraser, but no amount of sweet-talking the nurses could get him onto the ward. Ray took Dief for walks and gave him progress reports (still breathing, still not waking up), and promised to lick Fraser's face on Dief's behalf. He did it too, hell, he'd do any damn thing if it'd bring Fraser out of his coma. At least Fraser was warm now, even if he was still hooked up to IV lines and too many machines.

He read Fraser the newspaper, such as it was, and an old historical book from the visitors' lounge about pioneers in the Yukon, and he sang Fraser songs and talked to him, because they said you should do that, to bring people back. He even sang him the  _Northwest Passage_ song, which was a mistake, 'cause then he had it in his head like an ear-worm.

They wouldn't let him sleep there after the first night, so he got a motel room and ate at a local diner, chewing mechanically. It all tasted weird anyway after weeks on the trail—too rich, too sweet, nowhere near enough fat.

On the third day, when Ray was humming  _Northwest Passage_  for the umpteenth time, having given in completely to letting it eat his brain, Fraser twitched, and moved his hand, and muttered something that turned out to be "reaching" after Ray had given him some water to ease his scratchy throat.

"Yeah, Frase, I been reaching," Ray said, his eyes blurry for some reason. "I'm the reaching out hand, sure enough." He sniffed and wiped his nose on the sheets, which the nurses would give him hell for if they caught him, but no way was he letting go of Fraser's hand even for one second. "I been hoping you'd reach back, when you were ready."

Fraser opened his eyes. "M'ready," he said, smiling at Ray through cracked lips and bruises. "Want to hear all about . . . our adventures. After," he yawned, "a nap." His eyes slid shut, and he was properly asleep, making those little whiffling snores like he did, and Ray put his face down in the bedclothes and wept.

Then he cleaned himself up, and went to tell Dief.

 


	11. Epilogue

Fraser was mobilizing fast, 'cause the hotshot surgeon had put rods and shit inside his leg to hold it all together, which was stronger than just a cast. He was sitting out in a sunny corner of the patients' lounge with his leg up on a footstool when Ray arrived, having bribed his favorite afternoon nurse, Nancy, with a box of doughnuts, to let Dief in for a visit. It was a small hospital, so they had the lounge to themselves.

When Fraser and Dief had gotten the yipping and face-licking out of their systems—and Ray was talking about Fraser as well there, not just Dief—Ray settled into an adjoining armchair. "So, another failed expedition to find Franklin's hand, eh, Frase?"

Fraser shot him a smile. "I'm afraid so, Ray. But as you know, that was never my goal for the expedition."

"Yeah," Ray said, smirking. "You just wanted to get me into your sleeping bag an' have your way with me."

"Guilty as charged, Ray," Fraser said, not looking at all penitent.

"But, you know what, Fraser? I reckon we did find old Franklin's hand, after all."

"How so, Ray?" Fraser raised an eyebrow, then winced. The cuts were healing, but they weren't all gone yet.

Ray pulled out the map. It was the same detailed one he'd marked their route on, day after day, until close to the end. He'd taken some time the previous night in the motel, drawing in the final stretches, and the path of the rescue helicopter's flight. "I wrote in some of the camps, y'know. Some of the things that happened." He gave the map to Fraser, who tilted his head at it.

[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/mific/18732189/809250/809250_original.jpg)

"Hmm. The hand appears to be pointing, not reaching."

"Nah, it's 'tracing one warm line', Frase, that's what it's doing. That's what _we_ did."

The unbruised side of Fraser's mouth lifted in a smile. "We did indeed, Ray." He looked back at the map, then at Ray, the smile fading. "Humpty Dumpty?"

Ray bit his lip. "I can't . . . I'm still too freaked out by what happened, Frase. Only way I can handle almost losin' you is by joking about it."

Fraser nodded. "I felt the same way after," he glanced at the map and got a look on his face like he wanted to roll his eyes but was restraining himself, "you got . . . shafted."

"Okay, pact," Ray said. He spat in his right hand and held it out. "I won't get shafted again if you quit falling off mountains." Fraser solemnly spat in his own hand, and they shook.

There was a slightly awkward pause. "I kinda want to wipe my hand, but is that gonna break the pact?" Ray asked, feeling sheepish.

"Oh thank God," Fraser said. "Let's just agree that it won't." He wiped his hand on his hospital scrubs top. Ray leaned over and wiped his hand off on Fraser's scrubs as well. "Charming," Fraser said, giving Ray a long-suffering glare.

"What?" Ray put a look of injured innocence on his face. "Hey, the hospital's got its own laundry for bodily fluids and stuff. These are my good jeans."

Dief nudged Fraser's knee and yipped. "Oh very well, but without the saliva," Fraser said. He reached down and took Dief's upraised paw. "No misadventures for you either, Diefenbaker."

Ray put his hand on Dief's paw as well. "Ditto." Dief huffed in satisfaction, then he nosed at Ray's pocket, where Ray'd kept back a doughnut from the box for the nurses. "Yeah, yeah." Dief took his snack and hunkered down to enjoy it.

"You spoil him," Fraser said, eyeing Ray fondly.

Ray shrugged. "What you gonna do? The furface kind of grows on you." He took Fraser's hand. "Like someone else I could mention."

When Nancy came back to shoo them out, Ray and Fraser were kissing, there in a patch of sunlight in the patients' lounge of the Fort McPherson hospital. "I believe I'll take a coffee break," she announced with a grin as she turned on her heel. "Rumor has it there may be doughnuts."

 

  – the end –

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally, here's an [Interactive Map of their trip](http://mific.parakaproductions.com/Hand-of-Franklin-Interactive-Map.pdf). This was my initial idea for the dS_c6d Big Bang this year, but I couldn't find a way to just display it outright, on the AO3 site. It's a pdf file and each camp name is linked to the relevant story chapter, so it works pretty much the same as the Chapter Index on AO3. It's a largish pdf file so it may take a little while to load, initially. Back-button to return to the map from each story. 
> 
> Oh, and yes, I know that 'tracing one warm line' actually means finding a less solidly frozen path through the sea ice for ships to get through for the Northwest Passage, but Ray doesn't give a damn.
> 
> Here are the [full lyrics to the song Northwest Passage](http://mific.parakaproductions.com/Northwest-Passage-lyrics.html), and a link to Stan Rogers singing it - but heed the ear-worm warning!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Twelve Questing Pieces](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8147740) by [Ride_Forever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ride_Forever/pseuds/Ride_Forever)




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